Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

EDINBURGH CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

PAISLEY CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Apprentices (Experimental Training Course)

Mr. Owen: asked the Minister of Labour what progress has been made with the experimental training course for apprentices; how many have been enrolled; from what areas they cane; and whether he will make a statement.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. John Hare): I take it that the hon. Member Ls referring to the course for apprentices not sponsored by their employers, which I am establishing at Tursdale, County Durham. I hope training may start in about three months' time.

Mr. Owen: What does the Minister anticipate will emerge from a training course based on a period of one year's training? Is he aware that unless the scheme is directly linked with industry and these young people are assured of employment at the completion of their course, they are going to be exceedingly frustrated and the whole experiment will fail?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Gentleman is trying to prophesy that these young people will not get employment. My officers are certainly going to spare no

efforts Ito ensure that they do get employment, and I think that the hon. Gentleman's pessimism will prove not to be justified.

Greenock-Port Glasgow Area

Dr. Dickson Mabon: asked the Minister of Labour what was the average percentage of unemployment in the Greenock-Poet Glasgow area during the years 1959, 1960, 1961, and during 1962 up to the latest available date.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. William Whitelaw): 8·0 per cent. for 1959, 8·2 per cent. for 1960, 7·2 per cent. for 1961, and 7·5 per cent, for January to November this year.

Dr. Mabon: Do not these figures establish beyond any shadow of doubt that the Government have failed, and are failing, to solve the critical unemployment situation in this vital industrial centre? Cannot the Minister ginger up his colleagues at the Board of Trade and elsewhere to do something to fulfil their General Election promises about full employment?

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot accept for one moment what the hon. Gentleman says, nor can I agree with him that my right hon. Friends need gingering up in any way. What they have already done will materially improve the employment situation, and they have many other plans which will improve it still further.

Dr. Mabon: The same old story!

Dr. Dickson Mabon: asked the Minister of Labour what was the percentage of unemployment in the Greenock-Port Glasgow area at the latest available date; and what steps he proposes to take to improve employment prospects in the area.

Mr. Whitelaw: 8·6 per cent. at 12th November. The Government are continuing to do all they can to encourage industrial expansion in the area where the full facilities of the Local Employment Act are available.

Dr. Mabon: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that that sounds more like a threat than a promise, in view of our experience? Will he reconsider the industrial retraining of many of these men, who do not look as though they will ever


get back into their own trades? Would he not be wise to accept his own responsibility in the matter and urge the President of the Board of Trade to do something for the area?

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not think that the President of the Board of Trade needs any encouraging to do something in the area. The hon. Member is being a little less than just in view of what has been done and the jobs already provided of which he knows. My right hon. Friend is doing everything he can to improve and extend facilities for retraining.

Mr. Millan: Can the Parliamentary Secretary say how many retraining places are readily available at the Hillington centre and what expansion is expected? Is not the number of places very small and quite inadequate to meet the needs?

Mr. Whitelaw: Of course it is a small amount—

Mr. Ross: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many?

Mr. Whitelaw: Not without notice, although I should be delighted to let the hon. Member know. It is not as many as we would wish and we want to have more, but it is evidence of a thoroughly good start. I should have thought that it would have been accepted as such.

Ashington and Morpeth

Mr. Owen: asked the Minister of Labour what steps are being taken to find employment for the growing number of young people in Ashington and Morpeth areas; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Whitelaw: The total number of young people unemployed has fallen by a third in the past two months. Out of 503 summer school leavers, 17 remained unemployed on 10th December. Although school leavers in the area in 1962 are likely to be much the same in number as last year, I am glad to say that so far 50 per cent more young people have obtained apprenticeships than in 1961. The Youth Employment Service will continue to make every effort to find suitable jobs for all young people.

Mr. P. Williams: Will my hon. Friend undertake to look carefully at the ques-

tion of the provision of finance for youth clubs run by voluntary bodies, for this is a means by which immediate help can be given in the way of providing employment or at least something worth while for young people to do?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have noted what my hon. Friend has said, but I am sure he will appreciate that this is largely a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education.

Juvenile Factory Workers (Accidents)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Labour what investigations his Department has made into fatigue as a cause of accidents amongst juvenile factory workers; and with what results.

Mr. Hare: There is no evidence to show that the hours worked by young people in this country cause excessive fatigue such as would increase the risk of accidents. The most effective way of reducing such accidents is better training and supervision.

Mr. Boyden: Has the right hon. Gentleman any figures of the number of juvenile accidents in the last hour of work compared with the earlier hours of work? Has he operational research statisticians studying the problem? Surely he will remember that during the war operational research techniques brought about very considerable reductions in aircraft accidents and very much improved the training of aircrew. Could not the same sort of thing be applied here?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Gentleman has expressed interest in this matter before. It is a point that I have looked into very carefully. There is a great deal of medical research going on into this matter throughout the world, and the Medical Research Council has gone into the general problem of industrial fatigue. However, as I said in my Answer to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that his fears can be substantiated by any evidence that has been made available to me as a result of this research.

Mr. Boyden: Has the right hon. Gentleman consulted the T.U.C. about this? Its members have strong feelings about it.

Mr. Hare: I have consulted the medical authorities about it.

Mr. Bence: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider this seriously? Industrial fatigue very often leads to frustration and to inefficiency in production, and these two factors together constitute one of the main causes of bad relationships in many plants.

Mr. Hare: I have made inquiries into this, but I have received no evidence that accidents are primarily caused in the way suggested by the two hon. Members opposite. The experience we have suggests that accidents are due chiefly to lack of proper training and supervision and lack of experience.

Bishop Auckland

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Labour how many men are unemployed and how many are on short time in the construction industries and in other industries, respectively, in the Bishop Auckland travel-to-work area.

Mr. Whitelaw: At 12th November, 1962, 2,329 men were unemployed of whom 580 were previously employed in the construction industry. According to reports received at our local offices, there were 219 males on short time in the week ending 7th December. None of these were employed in the construction industry.

Mr. Boyden: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider making better transport arrangements to some areas in the North where there is more work? Has he heard that the new University of York building programme is held up to some extent by lack of operatives? Could not he arrange for fast, cheap transport from south-west Durham to York?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have certainly noted that important and valuable point.

Index of Retail Prices (Food Prices)

Mr. Prior: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will publish the prices of items of food used in the compilation of the monthly cost-of-living index.

Mr. Hare: No, Sir. The method of calculation of the Index of Retail Prices does not involve the calculation of average prices. I could not justify the very considerable amount of extra staff time involved in calculating average prices of

individual items of food involving as it would the calculation of averages of nearly 1,000 prices for each of nearly 100 items of food each month.

Mr. Prior: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the same sources of food prices quoted by his Department would be of great value to economists and statisticians doing research work? For example, bodies like the Pig Industry Development Authority would need to find out the prices of meat in various parts of the country in order to assess the economics of marketing. Is it possible to give same help to these people?

Mr. Hare: Naturally I will consider any suggestion my hon. Friend cares to put, but the main basis of my Answer still holds good.

Glasgow

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Labour if he will state the unemployment rate in Glasgow at the mast recent convenient date.

Mr. Hare: 4·9 per cent. at 12th November.

Mr. Rankin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, translated into human terms, 4·9 per cent. represents 27,000 unemployed persons in the Glasgow district? Does he realise that this is the highest which the oldest inhabitant in Glasgow can recollect? Is he further aware that the President of the Board of Trade informed me last Thursday that it was expected this year that 1,400 new jobs would be available to offset this? Since these 1,400 expectations were raised, 1,400 hopes have been blasted by the closing of Lobnitz's shipyard, thus keeping the score equal. What is his right hon. Friend at the Board of Trade doing to help Glasgow and district in this appalling situation?

Mr. Hare: I realise what these percentage figures mean in human terms. We are doing all we can as a Government to stimulate industrial development in the area. The House knows the proposals put forward by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the efforts of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. Both are doing all they can to steer new industry to these areas and also to stimulate the economy generally.

Mr. Hannan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise how empty and flaccid his words are? Is he aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Science and the Minister of Transport are all visiting Glasgow this weekend about this very problem? Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to consult them on their return and learn what representations have been made to them? If he is still talking to them at all, will he try to concert his efforts with theirs in order to do something drastic to relieve the situation?

Mr. Hare: I keep in the closest touch with my right hon. Friends.

Disabled Trainees, Durham (Allowances)

Mr. Grey: asked the Minister of Labour why the increased allowances which have been granted to trainees at Government training centres have been refused for disabled trainees at the Finchall Abbey Training Centre for the Disabled, Durham.

Mr. Hare: The increase in allowances to men in Government Training Centres was designed to encourage men becoming redundant in the coal mining and railway industries to take up a course of training instead of unskilled work. I am, however, considering whether there are other grounds for increasing the allowance at the residential centres.

Mr. Grey: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him whether he does not think it outrageous that these people should not have been considered in the first place? We are dealing here with disabled persons who cannot have the facilities enjoyed by fit people. Will he bring their allowances up to the same level as those given to others who enjoy ordinary training facilities?

Mr. Hare: As I have explained, the object of this exercise was primarily to help people who became redundant in coal mining and the railways to have training in other skills rather than leaving them to take unskilled jobs. However, I have noted the repercussions and, as I have indicated, I am considering what can be done in answer to the main point of the hon. Member's Question.

Mr. Popplewell: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the trainees taken into Finchale Abbey will have jobs available in the areas they go to afterwards? Considerable difficulty is encountered by some in finding jobs even after training.

Mr. Hare: Of course, I am never satisfied on these matters, and, as the hon. Member has pointed out, there are grave difficulties in finding jobs. Certainly we shall do all we can to help.

Hassockrigg and Benhar Colliery

Miss Herbison: asked the Minister of Labour how many men who became redundant due to the closure of Hassockrigg and Benhar Colliery are still unemployed.

Mr. Whitelaw: Forty-seven redundant workers from Hassockrigg Colliery and 189 from Benhar are registered at neighbouring employment exchanges.

Miss Herbison: Is the hon. Member aware that these figures are serious, since they must be taken in conjunction with the number of men in the same area who have been unemployed for a long time? Is he further aware that there is no hope whatever in the near future, and none in the distant future if this Government continue in office, of these men finding jobs? What can he do to help?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am aware that the position is serious. I am not aware, as the hon. Lady seems to suggest, that these people have no hope. They have considerable hope both from the B.M.C. factory development at Bathgate—

Mr. Rankin: Oh.

Mr. Whitelaw: Before the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) groans any more, I should also point out that two advance factories are being built in Shotts. All this is evidence of what the Government are determined to do and are doing.

Miss Herbison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the very high rate of unemployment in Bathgate and the West Lothian area where the B.M.C. factory is to be situated? Is he further aware that we on this side of the House who ask questions about our own constituencies are tired of being told that the B.M.C. factory will solve the problems of Midlothian, West Lothian and Lanarkshire?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have no desire to tire the hon. Lady any further. I do not suggest that the development will solve the problems, but, in view of the number of jobs being provided through it, it is only fair to refer to it.

Newmains and Cleland

Miss Herbison: asked the Minister of Labour how many are unemployed in Newmains and Cleland, giving figures for men, women, boys and girls.

Mr. Whitelaw: Separate figures for Newmains and Cleland are not available. They are part of the area of Wishaw Employment Exchange where on 12th November there were 944 men, 425 women, 64 boys, and 34 girls registered as unemployed.

Miss Herbison: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that in the area covered by the Wishaw Employment Exchange the rate of unemployment is close on 9 per cent.? What is he going to do, with other Ministers responsible, to help the people in that area? Is he aware that a considerable time ago the attention of his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade was drawn to an excellent site for an industrial estate between Wishaw and Newmains which would help not only the Wishaw area but villages in South Lanarkshire? Will he do his best to influence the President of the Board of Trade to choose that site for industry?

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate what the hon. Lady says, but it would be dangerous for me to attempt to influence my night hon. Friend as between one area and another. At the same time, I have noted what she has said and I have no doubt that it will also be noted by the President of the Board of Trade. I will ensure that it is.

Coal Mining, Shipbuilding and Engineering Industries (Strikes)

Mr. Edelman: asked the Minister of Labour how many days were lost per man, in the last 12 months for which figures are available, by workers in the coal mining, shipbuilding and engineering industries generally who engaged in strikes either official or unofficial.

Mr. Hare: For the 12 months ended 31st October, 1962, the figures were coal-

mining 0·5 days shipbuilding—including marine engineering-1·8, and the engineering industries generally 1·06.

Motor Industry (Strikes)

Mr. Edelman: asked the Minister of Labour how many days were lost per man, in the last 12 months far which figures are available, by workers in the motor industry who engaged in strikes either official or unofficial.

Mr. Hare: For the 12 months ended 31st October, 1962, the figure was 1·73 days.

Mr. Edelman: is it not the case that, although regrettable, these figures are relatively not high? Will not the right hon. Gentleman go into the basic causes of the strikes, such as they are, before yielding to the drummed-up agitation of his hon. Friends in favour of legislation to limit the right to strike?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Member knows perfectly well that I have paid a great deal of attention to the causes of the trouble in the motor industry in particular. I am glad to say that there is a small decline in the number of days lost through unofficial disputes this year compared with last year. I will continue to watch the situation very carefully. I do not think that there is much relevance in the other part of the hon. Member's supplementary question.

Mr. Cleaver: Can my right hon. Friend say what progress has been made in his talks with the employers and trade unions in this industry?

Mr. Hare: Since last February, there have been a number of unofficial strikes in the motor industry which have been very damaging to the industry as a whole and to those who work in it. However, no unofficial strike since last February has got anyone anywhere. The unions have not supported them and the employers have not given in. It has, therefore, been shown fairly conclusively, since last February, that unofficial strikes do neither side of industry the slightest good.

Mr. Marsh: Is it not important that it should be made quite clear, for the benefit of some of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends, that the strike performance of this country is much better


than that of almost all other industrial Powers, despite the fact that their productivity is better than ours? On this issue of strikes in the motor car industry, is it not also important to try to find out why these strikes should be largely confined to one motor car company which appears to find trouble wherever it goes, although its competitors do not?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Member is quite right when he says that our record of industrial strikes is better than that of most other major industrial countries, although it is not as good as that of West Germany. But that does not mean that any of us should feel complacent. There is a tremendous amount which we have to do, but which can be done with good will on both sides of industry, to improve our existing record.

Mr. Gunter: In view of the agitation by some of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends, as is shown by the Order Paper, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that great damage could be done by the simple allocation of blame for official strikes on the men when many of them arise through appallingly bad management at middle levels?

Mr. Hare: I think that this is not a subject for debate. I believe that there is a general desire in industry and in the House to work towards better industrial relations. I should like that spirit to be continued and to achieve results.

Redundant Miners and Railway Workers, Scotland

Mr. Bence: asked the Minister of Labour what steps he is taking to establish training centres for the purpose of retraining redundant miners and railway workers in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: I am opening two new training centres, one in Lanarkshire and the other in Fife. I am also providing additional classes at the training centre at Hillington, Glasgow.

Mr. Bence: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider and support the claim of many of us that redundant coal miners who have spent their life in the coal mining industry should be entitled to full wages while they are being retrained for other occupations in other industries?

Mr. Hare: I do not think that the point arises out of this Question. Doubtless the hon. Member would like to put down a Question to the appropriate Minister; perhaps he will accept that as my answer.

Mr. Bence: asked the Minister of Labour what steps he is taking to find alternative employment for redundant railway and mineworkers especially those over the age of 45 years in the county of Dunbartonshire.

Mr. Whitelaw: There will be some redundancies in adjacent areas outside the county boundary. Our officers will do their best to assist all workers who register for employment.

Mr. Bence: As a one-time resident of my constituency, would the hon. Member take steps and use his good offices to see that redundant miners who are 45 years of age and more are not barred from other occupations because they are that age merely because of the terms of certain superannuation schemes? As he knows the area very well, does he not agree that it is an area in which men who are 45 and over ought to be given an opportunity of alternative employment when their mines are closed and they have no work or hope of work?

Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Member has made an important point which will be widely accepted. The employment of older workers is a difficult matter and anything which anyone, inside or outside the House, can do to help would be most valuable.

Cumnock

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Labour how many unemployed were registered at the Cumnock Employment Exchange on 30th November; what was the percentage increase over 30th November, 1961; and what steps are being taken to reduce the number of unemployed in this district of Ayrshire.

Mr. Whitelaw: As a result of the distressing accident at Barony Colliery a special count was taken on 3rd December. This showed that 1,579 workers were


registered as unemployed, an increase of over 300 per cent. compared with 11th December, 1961.
I understand that the National Coal Board is confident that it will be able to reabsorb nearly all of these men eventually and substantial numbers will be found work at other collieries within travelling distance over the next few months. The area is already a development district where the Government are doing their best to encourage industrial development and are setting up an advance factory.

Mr. Hughes: Can the Parliamentary Secretary define what he means by "eventually"? Is he aware that the Coal Board has said that it cannot guarantee the opening of this mine for two years? What is to be done in the interval? While we are thankful for the small mercy of a small factory, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman appreciates that a tremendous calamity has overtaken the district? Can we rely upon him to support constructive measures, such as a duty-free airport at Prestwick and the various measures which have been urged upon him by the Ayrshire County Council?

Mr. Whitelaw: I fully accept that this is a very serious happening for the area. The hon. Member must not tempt me into going too far in defining other projects. Besides retaining about 200 adult workers in addition to juveniles, the Board has so far absorbed about 300 of the people locally.

—
14th November, 1960
Per cent, of insured employees*
13th November, 1961
Per cent. of insured employees*
12th November, 1962
Per cent, of insured employees*


Stanley
…
491
2·5
567
2·9
934
4·8


Consett
…
302
1·5
450
2·2
1,047
5·1


* Figures of the total working population are available only for Great Britain as a whole.

Shipbuilding Industry

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Labour What steps be is taking to offer comparable employment to men who are dismissed from the shipbuilding industry in order to ensure that a skilled labour force shall not be allowed to disintegrate.

Stanley and Consett, Durham

Mr. Stones: asked the Minister of Labour what were the numbers of persons unemployed in the employment exchange areas of Stanley and Consett, County Durham, at the latest convenient date; what percentage of the total working population these figures represent; and how they compare with those of the same dates in 1960 and 1961.

Mr. Whitelaw: As the reply takes the form of a table of figures I will with permission circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Stones: While I would have appreciated the information desired at this moment, I think that I am in possession of information with regard to the alarming increase in unemployment. May I ask that when the hon. Gentleman does have the figures he will take remedial action rather than force men to migrate from this area to other areas in search of work?

Mr. Whitelaw: I think I should make it clear that I said that I had the figures and would circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I note what the hon. Gentleman says. Perhaps I should tell him that in November, 1962, unemployment in Stanley was 934, or 4.8 per cent., and in Consett it was 1,047, or 5·1 per cent. I think the hon. Gentleman knows very well what efforts are being made both in general expansion of the economy and in local efforts to improve the position.

Following are the figures:

Mr. Hare: My local officers are doing all they can to help men who are redundant in the shipbuilding industry to find alternative jobs which will make use of their skills.

Dame Irene Ward: Having regard to that sympathetic reply, would I be right in assuming that my right hon. Friend


would be pleased to help his officers in the areas where shipbuilding is slowing down, by making representations, as I am sure he will, to the Cabinet as a whole to accelerate the naval shipbuilding programme? Is he aware that this will keep skilled men in occupation? Would he please appreciate how disastrous it would be to Tyneside and other shipbuilding areas if the skilled labour force were allowed to disperse and cause enormous havoc such as was caused at the beginning of the last wax when they had been dispersed because of unemployment? Would my right hon. Friend get on to the Admiralty?

Mr. Hare: I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend said about the need for a skilled labour force. I am certain that this is one of the considerations we must bear in mind, in looking forward to a period of expansion, to see that these areas where there is heavy unemployment do not lose the chance of expansion merely because there is not enough skilled labour available. On the other part of the question, I must not succumb to the blandishments of my hon. Friend. She is trying to drive a wedge between me and the rest of the Cabinet, but I will see that my right hon. Friends are made aware of what she has said.

Mr. Popplewell: Yes, but—

Mr. Speaker: No. Mr. Dugdale.

West Bromwich

Mr. Dugdale: asked the Minister of Labour how many unemployed were on the register of the West Bromwich Employment Exchange on 12th November, 1962.

Mr. Whitelaw: One thousand seven hundred and sixty-five, of whom 691 were temporarily stopped.

Mr. Dugdale: But is the hon. Gentleman aware that as long ago as June of this year grave concern was expressed locally at the high unemployment figures which are not only higher than those in the Midlands, but higher than the average for the country? Will he give this matter his very careful consideration? Does he realise that the Midlands can no longer be classed as an area free from unemployment, and

that the position there is now rapidly approaching that in areas in the North-East and other areas for which he has a grave responsibility?

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not think I can go quite as far as agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman that the Midlands rival some of the other areas of the country. I should point out that over one-third of the unemployment figure that I gave referred to people who were temporarily stopped. The wholly unemployed rate in West Bromwich is 2·3 per cent. as against the national average of 2·2 per cent.

Mr. Cleaver: Can my hon. Friend say how many of these unemployed were immigrants?

Mr. Whitelaw: Not without notice.

Mr. Dugdale: Will the hon. Gentleman realise that immigrants are in exactly the same position as everybody else and have to be employed? We cannot say that they should be wiped out and do not count at all.

Mr. Whitelaw: I do not think that I ever made any such suggestion.

Industrial Training Centre, County Durham

Mr. Ainsley: asked the Minister of Labour why he considers the Brancepeth, County Durham, Industrial Training Centre to be unsuitable for training juveniles and adults.

Mr. Hare: Brancepeth is not an industrial training centre. It could be adapted for this purpose, but premises now available at Tursdale, three miles away, are more suitable.

Mr. Ainsley: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why he changed his mind in moving from the Brancepeth proposal? Is not the Tursdale scheme just making a mockery of his recent White Paper on industrial training because of the limited facilities available there? Will he stop bluffing the public that the Government are doing something when we know perfectly well that Tursdale is linked up with the mining industry in the county, and realise that to meet the problem outside the mining industry we need another training centre?

Mr. Hare: The reason why I have gone to Tursdale is that I can start training there quicker than if I waited for Brancepeth. These premises, which have been made available by the National Coal Board, are suitable for this purpose and will enable me to get on with the job sooner.

Machine Tool Industry

Mr. Willis: asked the Minister of Labour what has been the increase in the numbers of those employed in the machine tool industry in Scotland and Great Britain, respectively, since 1951.

Mr. Hare: Owing to changes in industrial classification, the figures are not strictly comparable but it is estimated that between 1951 and 1961 there were increases of about 3,800 in Scotland and 58,000 in Great Britain.

Mr. Willis: But do not these figures indicate that Scotland has been failing to get its proper share of development in this industry? Is it not because Scotland is failing to gets its share in these developing and expanding industries that Scottish unemployment is so high and many people have to leave Scotland?

Mr. Hare: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we all wish to see more expanding and new industries going to Scotland. In considering this industry, however, I think he should know that since 1951 employment in Scotland has more than doubled compared with an increase of about 65 per cent. in Great Britain. I am not saying that Scotland has had its proper share, but in this case it has done rather better proportionately than Great Britain.

Boys

Mr. Willis: asked the Minister of Labour what was the increase or decrease in the numbers of boys of 18 years and under in employment in Scotland and Great Britain, respectively, from 1951 to the latest available date.

Mr. Hare: Separate figures are only available for boys under 18. Between May, 1951, and May, 1961, inclusive the number of such boys in employment decreased by 6,600 in Scotland and increased by 53,500 in Great Britain.

Mr. Willis: As there is a higher birth rate in Scotland than in England—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Time does not permit me to say why—is it not rather amazing that there should be fewer boys employed now than 11 years ago, and is not this really a terrible indictment of Tory rule over the past 11 years?

Mr. Hare: From the evidence that I have, few of the 15 to 17 year old boys leave Scotland on their own to find work. The cause of this decline is that many of these children have left with their parents who have moved elsewhere.

Mr. Lawson: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a steady decline in male labour, men as well as boys? This is perhaps the most disturbing characteristic of the development in Scotland—that we are steadily losing the male part of our population. Will the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the seriousness of this problem and do something very much more than he has tried to do up to the present time?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Gentleman is right. There has been a decrease in male labour. I was explaining, in answer to his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), that when families have left the children have gone with them, and that this accounted for the fall in the number of boys there. On the general point, I repeat what I said to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East, that we all wish to see new and expanding industries going to Scotland, and we will do our best to see that it happens.

Jarrow and Hebburn

Mr. Fernyhough: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that unemployment in Jarrow and Hebburn is three times higher than the national average; and what are the employment prospects of the people concerned.

Mr. Whitelaw: Yes, Sir. Though there are few notified vacancies at present, there are a number of jobs in prospect in the area.

Mr. Fernyhough: Can the Parliamentary Secretary please change the record? Does not he realise that this is the kind of Answer I have been getting for 10 years? There are always jobs in prospect, there are always jobs in the pipeline, but these jobs never materialise.


Does he not appreciate that what the people of Jarrow are experiencing now is what they went through in the inter-war years. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] For the unemployed it is. Their prospects under the present Government seem little better than they did under the Administration which really murdered the town. Would not be better if the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend admitted that they have not a clue, that they do not know how to solve the problem, and gave way to people who would make some serious attempt to do so?

Mr. Whitelaw: I can only assume that the reason why the hon. Member is getting the same answer is that he has been asking the same question. [Interruption.] Having said that, I do not think that he would really suggest that it is right to compare the position today with that of the 1930s, as he has been doing. This does not render any service to those in the areas concerned, or to anyone else. He also knows that quite a few jobs have been produced. He underrates what has been done. I can only say that by general measures taken by my right hon. Friend to reflate the economy, by measures to increase expenditure in the North-East, and by the facilities provided by the Local Employment Act, considerable efforts have been made to improve the position.

Mr. Prentice: The Parliamentary Secretary must not be flippant in his replies to these Questions. Is he aware that in the replies given to this Question and the preceding ones he and his right hon. Friend have put forward no new ideas, and have offered no prospect of new policies in respect of this matter? Does he realise that last night, in a speech in London, the Leader of the House said that the Government intended to speed up the process of bringing industries to these areas? If that is so, should not he and his right hon. Friend have been able to give us some details today? Or was the Leader of the House—like so many other Cabinet Ministers—raising hopes that will not be fulfilled under this Government?

Mr. Whitelaw: If anything that I have said could be construed as flippant I apologise. It was not my desire and I had no intention of being flippant. I naturally regard the position as serious,

as everyone does. I do not think that it would be for me to add anything to what the Leader of the House has said. Naturally, he speaks with great authority.

Motor Vehicles and Aircraft Industry

Mr. Steele: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in the manufacture of parts and accessories of motor vehicles, and in the aircraft industry; and what proportion of those employees is located in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: The manufacture of many components for motors and aircraft is included in the industrial classification for the parent industry. These two industries are the subject of other Questions. The manufacture of ball bearings, precision chains, etc., employed 207,000 in Great Britain in mid-1961, of whom 4 per cent. were employed in Scotland. The manufacture of rubber goods, which includes tyres and tubes, employed 124,000 in Great Britain, of whom 6·9 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mr. Steele: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his reply to this Question and previous ones is a clear indication of the Government's complete failure properly to plan the location of industry? Will he, in conjunction with his right hon. Friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, consider these figures with a view to seeing that something is done about them?

Mr. Hare: As the hon. Member knows. I am in the closest touch with my right hon. Friends.

Mr. Willis: We want results.

Mr. Hare: We cannot change situations overnight. What we wish to see is more new industry following the industry that has already gone to Scotland, to take the place of those industries which are declining. This is the policy of the Government, and we shall pursue it with the greatest vigour.

Electrical Goods

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in


the manufacture of electrical goods, other than electrical machinery; and what proportion of those employees is located in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: The current classification relates to the manufacture of "Other electrical goods", which includes electrical equipment for motor vehicles, cycles and aircraft; batteries; electric lamps; and miscellaneous electrical goods. In mid-1961 the number employed in Great Britain was 147,000 of whom 4 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mr. Dalyell: In the light of these disappointing figures, what action has the Minister taken to increase employment in the electronic nucleus which already exists round Edinburgh by consulting the National Research Development Corporation, and also by setting up joint projects with the Corporation, as he is entitled to do?

Mr. Hare: It is exactly this type of light industry that we wish to see going to Scotland and the North-East, and we shall do everything we can to see that this process is encouraged.

Mr. Dalyell: Bluntly—what contact has the Minister had with the N.R.D.C.?

Aircraft Industry

Mr. Small: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in manufacture and repair in the aircraft industry; and what proportion of those employees is located in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: In mid-1961 the number employed in Great Britain was 297,000, of whom 5 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mr. Small: Does the Minister recognise that these figures are disappointing? Scotland never gets its share of the manufacturing element in the aircraft industry. Surely some easement of the position could be brought about by providing that some of the repair work was done in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: I will certainly see that the hon. Member's suggestion is brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Scientific, Surgical and Photographic Instruments

Mr. Hannan: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in the manufacture of scientific, surgical and photographic instruments; and what proportion of those employees is located in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: In mid-1961 the number employed in Great Britain was 134,300, of whom 4·8 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mr. Hannan: Surely the right hon. Gentleman recognises that these are exactly the types of industry which should be dealt with under the Location of Industry Act. Cannot he take action by making recommendations to Government Departments which must, through their own activities, create a good deal of work for these desirable industries which are needed in the North?

Mr. Hare: I have answered the Question. I could have answered all these Questions at the same time, but I thought it more courteous to hon. Members not to do so. In answer to the hon. Member, I can say that we all wish to see a larger share of the expanding industries going to Scotland and the North-East.

Chemicals and Dyes Industry

Mrs. Cullen: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in the chemicals and dyes industry; and what proportion of those employees is in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: In mid-1961 the number employed in Great Britain was 216,800, of whom 7 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mrs. Cullen: Does not the Minister agree that this percentage is much too small? What steps does he propose to take, with other Ministers, to ensure that Scotland obtains a larger share of these industries?

Mr. Hare: I repeat what I have said to other hon. Members; it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to encourage in every possible way the movement


of these expanding industries to Scotland and to other areas of heavy unemployment.

Electrical Wires and Cables

Mr. Lawson: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in the manufacture of electrical wires and cables; and what proportion of those employees is in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: This industry is now defined as the manufacture of insulated wire and cables. In mid-1961 the number employed in Great Britain was 62,900, of whom 1·4 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mr. Lawson: Does not the Minister appreciate that most of the products of this industry are used either in the nationalised electricity industry or in the Post Office? Will he approach both industries, with a view to seeing that they themselves—since they are customers of the industry—insist on a very much larger proportion of the manufacturing processes being carried out north of the Humber, if not necessarily in Scotland—although we want as much in Scotland as possible?

Mr. Hare: I will see that the hon. Member's suggestions are drawn to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Wireless Valves and Electric Lamps

Mr. McInnes: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in the manufacture of wireless valves and electric lamps; and what proportion of those employees is located in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: The manufacture of wireless valves is now classified with the manufacture of radio and other electronic apparatus, which is being dealt with in a later Question. The manufacture of electric lamps is now classified with the manufacture of other electrical goods, which was covered in my reply to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell).

Mr. McInnes: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that over the past few years there has been a considerable

reduction in the Scottish figures? Ever since 1951 we have been appealing to the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends to do something to maintain and expand these light industries in Scotland. Will he now tell the House what has transpired between himself and his right hon. Friend—with whom he has apparently had the closest consultations—to remedy this unsatisfactory situation?

Mr. Hare: I do not want to refer again to the number of jobs which have accrued to Scotland under the Local Employment Act since it was brought into effect, because when I do so it merely causes complaint. All I ask is that hon. Members should realise that the Government are doing all they can to see that new industry comes to areas of heavy unemployment.

Motor Vehicles and Cycles

Mr. Gourlay: asked the Minister of Labour what is the number of employees, at the latest available date, engaged in motor vehicle and cycle manufacturing; and what proportion of those employees is located in Scotland.

Mr. Hare: In mid-1961 the number employed in Great Britain was 446,100, of whom 1·5 per cent. were employed in Scotland.

Mr. Gourlay: Since this is one of the expanding industries in Britain, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the percentage coming to Scotland is a shocking one? This represents far too small a proportion of the people employed in the industry. When does the Minister propose to remove the blockage which is preventing a greater flow of new jobs in this industry from the now infamous pipeline?

Mr. Hare: I have already explained that my right hon. Friend and other members of the Government are doing what they can to improve the situation.

Mr. T. Fraser: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the many replies that he has given to these Questions indicate that the policy which he and his right hon. Friends have followed for the last 11 years has been largely a failure in Scotland—a fact emphasised by the answer he gave two days ago,


which showed that at a time when male employment had increased by 855,000 in England and Wales it had decreased by 16,000 in Scotland? Is he aware that the former President of the Board of Trade—now Lord Eccles—suggested only last week that special steps would have to be taken to deal with this problem? Is it the fact that only Tory ex-Ministers know what should be done to solve the problem? In the circumstances, would it not be better if they wore all ex-Ministers?

Mr. Hare: I will try to answer the serious point raised by the hon. Member As he knows, many new jobs have accrued to Scotland as a result of policies for which Her Majesty's Government were responsible. It is also true that there has been a fairly rapid decline in some of the old industries. We should naturally like to see more expanding industries coming to Scotland. It is clear that the steps taken by my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade are going to have their effect in generally reflating the economy and enabling expansion to take place. I hope that hon. Members will not paint too grim a picture of depression. This will not help either their constituents or the new industries which might be going to these areas.

Mr. T. Fraser: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the policy that he is following is proving inadequate because what is happening is, at the very best, that Scotland and, indeed, the whole of the North are getting more employment only by the expansion of branches of other industries into the area? Does he not realise that we shall not solve this problem of the North until we get more of the newer growth industries established there—with their headquarters—so that growth will inevitably take place in the North? Does he not also realise that this change of policy is essential if we are to deal with the problem?

Mr. Hare: The hon. Gentleman agrees with me that what we want to do is to get more of the newer growth type of industries up to Scotland. This is precisely what our policies are designed to do.

Sunderland

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Labour what was the number of unemployed persons in Sunderland on the latest available date; what was the corresponding figure for the previous year; and what factors have caused the increase.

Mr. Whitelaw: 6,537 persons were unemployed in the Sunderland area on 12th November, compared with 3,923 on 13th November, 1961. The main industries affected by increases were shipbuilding and ship-repairing, engineering and electrical goods and construction.

Mr. Willey: Does the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that these are very grave figures indeed? This reveals a very black position in Sunderland. Can he say why the Government have done nothing about this, why we were taken off the list of aided areas, why no anticipation of this position was shown by the Government, and when we are to get some help?

Mr. Whitelaw: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that these figures disclose a serious position, but be knows very well that the Government have done a considerable amount for Sunderland. The facilities of the Local Employment Act have just been restored to the area, and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has announced a proposal to build an advance factory there. In addition, same 3,800 jobs are expected to arise from new buildings and other developments.

Mr. P. Williams: Does my hon. Friend recognise that while mast people welcome the actions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is not necessarily true that these actions in releasing credit and other matters will be of direct or immediate help or that even in the remote future they will help the heavy industrial areas?

Mr. Whitelaw: I should have thought that the measures taken to expand the economy as a whole were bound to have an effect throughout the economy.

Mr. Willey: Will the Parliamentary Secretary answer my question? In the light of these figures, why was Sunderland taken off the list of areas being aided by the Government?

Mr. Whitelaw: I did by best to answer the hon. Gentleman's question before. It is because of these figures that Sunderland has been restored to the full facilities of a development district.

Shipyards (Alternative Work)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Labour what action he has taken about the provision of alternative work in shipyards.

Mr. Hare: Some shipyards have, with considerable initiative, secured alternative work and have begun, for example, to play a part in industrialised building. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works is giving further consideration to the possibility of developments in this field.

Mr. Willey: While recognising what has been done in some yards, and also the importance, so far as possible, of keeping the labour force attached to the yards, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to make this a particular study and to call in the co-operation of the shipbuilders to see that every effective step is taken and that, if necessary, Government aid is given to this sort of work?

Mr. Hare: As I have just told the hon. Gentleman, the Minister of Public Building and Works is giving further consideration to the whole of this idea.

Mr. J. Howard: With regard to the provision of work in shipyards, may I ask my right hon. Friend what progress has been made towards merging the considerable number of unions engaged in shipbuilding with a view to avoiding disputes and higher costs which arise from lines of demarcation, thus preparing the industry to compete for orders when world demand for new shipping improves?

Mr. Hare: Discussions with both employers and trade unions in the shipbuilding industry are at the moment taking place under the chairmanship of a senior officer of my Ministry. The object of these discussions is perfectly simple—that, on the one side, the employers should give the workers greater security at work and, on the other, that there should be far fewer of these demarcation troubles and disputes which have damaged the competi-

tive position of the shipbuilding industry. I sincerely hope that we shall make progress in these talks. At the moment, I have nothing further to say to my hon. Friend than that which I have just told him.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the great and increasing unemployment in the shipyards, not only in north-east England but in north-east Scotland, is an attack upon one of Britain's major traditional industries, and that it demands a really constructive plan for its solution by the Minister? What is his plan?

Mr. Hare: The hon. and learned Gentleman always has a great sense of the dramatic. He knows perfectly well that if he wants a serious answer he should put his question to the Minister responsible for the shipbuilding industry. I hope that we do not take too pessimistic a view of the future of the industry. Admittedly, there is a good deal of shipbuilding capacity surplus to world requirements at the moment. Although this industry may have to contract, I do not believe that it has not a very considerable future.

Industrial Training

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Labour if he will make a statement on the steps he will take to implement the proposals contained in the White Paper on Industrial Training; and when he expects to introduce legislation.

Mr. Hare: I have put the proposals before the British Employers' Confederation, the Trades Union Congress and the nationalised industries. My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Education are consulting educational interests. It is the Government's intention to complete these discussions as soon as possible in view of the radical new approach to industrial training comprised in these proposals. I cannot at this stage indicate when discussions will be completed.

Mr. Prentice: Is the Minister aware that hon. Members on this side of the House welcomed the White Paper but regret that these steps were not taken two or three years ago when they were advocated by hon. Members on this side


so that advantage could have been taken of them before the bulge in the number of school leavers and there would have been no lack of opportunity of training in the last few years? Will the right hon. Gentleman do everything to speed up the consultations? May we expect him to present a Bill to this House during the current Session?

Mr. Hare: I cannot remember that in 1958 the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends attacked the Carr Report. That was supported by the trade union movement. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can claim too much merit for the authorship of these proposals. Naturally, I wish to see that the discussions are completed as quickly as possible. These are radical and new proposals which will be of great benefit to industrial training. I shall see that there will be no unnecessary delay in seeking a conclusion.

ROYAL COMMISSIONS (PROCEDURE)

Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make to the House.
I understand that the Leader of the House is now in a position to report to the House the outcome of consultations which have taken place with a view to improving the procedure for Royal Commissions. I must now, therefore, rule upon the constitutional position in the light of which those arrangements have to be considered.
The House will recall that I was asked to consider whether or no our practice now allows us to decline to admit the Gentleman-Usher of the Black Rod, or, by implication, to delay our obedience to his request, for instance, by the further transaction of business.
The answer is, "No". For my assistance an examination has been made of the Journals of the House and of other authority. It confirms the accuracy as a statement of our practice since the Restoration of a passage in Hatsell's Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons at page 242 of the First Edition of 1781.
I will read the passage to the House. It is as follows:

And, as it is the established custom, that, when the Black Rod knocks at the door, he is immediately let in (without any notice given by the Serjeant to the House, or question put, as is usual in messages from the Lords, and in other cases) I apprehend that as soon as he knocks, all other business, of what kind soever, must immediately cease, the doors must be opened, and, when he has delivered his message, the Speaker and the House must, without debate or delay, go to attend the King in the House of Peers. Indeed a contrary doctrine might lead into much confusion; for if the King came, as was not unusual in the reigns of the Stuarts, on a sudden to prorogue or dissolve the 'Parliament' and the House of Commons 'alone' could, by their forms, by refusing to open the door, or, after the message was delivered, by debating, delaying, or refusing to pay obedience to it, decline going to receive the King's commands, they would thereby have it in their power to resist, and render of no effect, the undoubted prerogative of the Crown.

Mr. M. Foot: Can you tell us, Mr. Speaker, why it is necessary for the House, in inquiring in this matter, merely to go back for its precedents to the Restoration? Would not we get better precedents if we went back a bit further?

Mr. Speaker: I do not know about "better" ones. It is true to say that the House treated the Lord Protector's Black Rod in a fashion which, without historical allusion, I might call "cavalier". But I thought that, for my duty to the House in 1962, 300 years of precedent would do.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): I am sure that the House is grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for your statement. As you will recall, this arose from the arrival of Black Rod at the time of Prorogation on 25th October, when the House was discussing questions arising out of the Prime Minister's statement on Cuba and the situation in India.
As you said, there have been some discussions between the two sides of the House and I think that the House will agree it is probably unnecessary to try to make separate arrangements for Prorogation, because it is clearly unlikely that a similar situation—that is to say, the moment of Prorogation coinciding with questioning on matters of world importance—would arise.
On the other hand, there are Royal Commissions from time to time and


whenever possible we will continue to take these at a time and on a day as convenient to the House as possible. For example, last week there was a Royal Commission at six o'clock on a Wednesday when the business before the House, although of considerable importance, was neither controversial nor likely to attract large numbers of hon. Members.
I hope that these arrangements will be for the convenience of the House.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I thank you, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, for your historical researches, and say that, so far as I am concerned, I am not tremendously impressed by the precedent of 1781. Nevertheless, I do not honestly think it worth while making a tremendous fuss about this particular issue. If we can avoid the kind of situation which arose on Prorogation recently and on an earlier occasion, when I think that Black Rod came at about four o'clock in the afternoon, there will not be much reason for worrying.
I should like to ask the Leader of the House whether, apart from the case of Prorogation, which, I agree, is rather special and unusual, he will in future make sure, so far as possible, that Black Rod comes—in other words, that there is a Royal Commission—when the business of the House is relatively uncontroversial and at a time rather later than four o'clock in the afternoon.

Mr. Macleod: We shall certainly always try to do this, but I must enter this caveat. There are occasions—indeed in a sense the occasion last week was one, because of the imminence of the date on which Tanganyika was to become a Republic—when it is essential to have a Royal Commission at short notice. Subject to that, I agree that a

time at about six o'clock would be best. We shall always try to take it on a day when business is comparatively uncontroversial.

Mr. Shinwell: May I ask a question of you, Mr. Speaker, although it may be that the Leader of the House can reply? On the assumption that Black Rod intervened during Question Time, could we arrange that if there is an interruption of Questions we might have an extension of Question Time?

Mr. Speaker: I think that that is a question for the Leader of the House. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman can assist about it.

Mr. Macleod: In this case it was not, of course, Question Time. To meet the wishes of the House the Prime Minister, at the time of Prorogation, made a special statement on matters relating to Cuba and to affairs in India. Then a considerable period, something like 40 minutes, was taken up by questioning, and the arrival of Black Rod put an end to that.
It may be that we should have allowed longer on that day. I am prepared to accept that criticism, although there were consultations. But, if that is so, the fault is mine and I accept the criticism. So far as the ordinary business of the House is concerned, the normal time of a Royal Commission is at six o'clock, if possible on a quiet Parliamentary day, to meet the convenience of the House.

Mr. Greenwood: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that although the proposal is not as radical as many of us would wish—we should have preferred Black Rod to be admitted only by leave of the House—nevertheless it constitutes a substantial step forward, and, in the spirit of Christmas, I accept it with appreciation.

FOREIGN BASES (REMOVAL)

3.49 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to terminate the agreement with the Government of the United States of America for the siting of a Polaris submarine base in Great Britain.
I have had no collaboration at all with the Minister of Defence and this Motion has not been inspired in any way by the right hon. Gentleman in the controversy which has been referred to in today's newspapers as a "dogfight". I abhor dogfights. I dissociate myself completely from the point of view of the Minister of Defence and the point of view of Mr. McNamara. My objections to the agreement which the Prime Minister introduced to this House on 1st November, 1960, are more fundamental.
At that time, the reaction was immediate and the Scottish Trades Union Congress, which so often represents the democratic point of view of the people of Scotland, immediately reacted by organising a campaign against the establishment of the Polaris submarine base in Great Britain. It was followed by decision's to oppose the base from, I believe, all the great local authorities in that area, Glasgow Corporation, Greenock Corporation and the county councils adjacent to the area. These protests came from the people of Scotland and still represent their paint of view.
They have been reinforced by the decisions of more representative bodies of the people of this country, such as the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party. We believe that this agreement was a bad agreement because it established the base almost adjacent to a big industrial area which was exposed to the dangers of nuclear war. It was placed, in the event of a nuclear war, right in the front line with no adequate defence, with no civil defence worth speaking about, and involving great dangers to the population of the west of Scotland and to the country generally.
It gave powers to the American Government to take control and to establish a miniature base in this country without this country having any real control over the activities of the Polaris submarines that were to go on their operations from the Holy Loch. Those of us

who have complained against this agreement knew that it was a bad agreement, but we did not realise how bad it was until this week. We now know, for we were told over the wireless yesterday, and it is reported in the Daily Mail of today, that there were secret understandings in this agreement by which, if we allowed the Americans to have the Holy Loch, they would allow us to have the Skybolt missile.
Why was that not disclosed to the House at the time? We have heard of the biblical story of the man who sacrificed his birthright for a mess of pottage, but we have sacrificed the interests, the safety and security of the people of this country for a missile which, we are now told, is non-existent. The Government now find that their whole defence policy is in complete muddle. They are acting quite inexplicably by demanding from the Americans that they should give us an expensive and dangerous weapon, which even the Americans say is not operational.
The Government may be able to explain to the people why we should be receiving Skybolt when it is not even a military asset. This largely is a controversy between the British Government and the American Government. We are told in the Daily Mail today that
The Government's bitterness over Skybolt can only have been increased by Mr. McNamara's tactics with Mr. Thorneycroft. His attitude confirmed suspicions that the United States Administration is now openly making decisions without consulting Britain.
The Government know that, but when this agreement was introduced by the Prime Minister he told us that every possible consultation would take place.
We are further told, in the Daily Mail:
The faith of Mr. Macmillan and his Ministers in Skybolt has been unquestioning. This has been confirmed time and time again in their public and private comments. It was promised to Mr. Macmillan by President Eisenhower in a gentlemen's agreement which gave the U.S. the Polaris submarine base on Holy Loch and other nuclear facilities here.
We are entitled to have the fullest Parliamentary discussion about a commitment which this House did not realise. We are told in The Times today, by its Washington correspondent, that in the process of these negotiations Hound-dog, the other American stand-off bomb, is an inadequate weapon and that a Polaris submarine force is probably


impossibly expensive and not necessarily a substitute for a bomber.
In the Daily Herald today we are told that when the Prime Minister goes to America at the end of this month a carrot will be dangled before the nose of Great Britain. [An HON. MEMBER: "Before the donkey."] Before the donkey. If Skybolt does not materialise, we are to be offered submarines, equipped with the Polaris missile, at a cost of £50 million to the British taxpayer. This is the carrot which is hung before the donkey. What we are afraid of is that the donkey will swallow it and the Prime Minister will come back, after discussing this agreement, with more commitments which will be more expensive and of less value to the people of this country.
What control have we under this agreement over the operations of these submarines? In the Guardian this week there has been a series of extremely interesting and informative articles entitled, "The First Great Nuclear Crisis", written by Mr. Hetherington, the editor. He tells us:
During the last three days from October 26th to October 28th the danger was at its greatest. Thanks to coolness and sanity on both sides, and to U Thant's mediation, the crisis was overcome. But, as now admitted in the White House, it was a near thing.
In the middle of that crisis the American forces were alerted and the "Proteus" was alerted in the Holy Loch. The "Proteus" disappeared. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I quite agree about that, but we are concerned with the fact that the "Proteus" came back. I hope the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) will realise the dangers involved in that. He shakes his head, suggesting that there are no dangers, but it is obvious that in this crisis the American Government thought that the Holy Loch was too dangerous a place in which to keep expensive submarines.
As we have no control over the submarines and we have no control over their activities, this weapon should not receive facilities in this country. This is the first lesson of this nuclear crisis. We are all very glad that the Russians had the sense to bring home their bombers and their nuclear missiles from Cuba;

and we wish that in taking them back to Russia they had lost them on the way.
According to the President of the United States, this action by Mr. Khrushchev was an act of supreme statesmanship in that the missiles were removed from the island base which was threatening the United States. We should, therefore, carry this argument a little further, to its logical conclusion, and say that the people of this country would be very glad indeed to see the American submarines go back to the United States so that they did not live in danger of being a target for missiles and bombers in the event of an attack.
I am not anti-American. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is not anti-American to criticise American policy. Indeed, if it is anti-American to criticise American policy, then Lord Chandos and the Institute of Directors—and the Minister of Defence—are anti-American, for they have been criticising Mr. Dean Acheson. There would be a very great feeling of relief among the personnel of the "Proteus" ships and the submarines if the order were received for them to go back to the United States. If it were possible, I imagine that some of these unfortunate sailors—if they thought that it could be done and the question of nationality were not at stake—might even try to get out of this difficulty by becoming candidates at the by-election at Calve Valley or Rotherham.
I am sure that the wives and the relatives of these American sailors, some of Whom are no doubt reading the squalid and unsavoury reports of what is happening in Glasgow, would be delighted to know that American sailors were returning from this danger spot.

Mr. R. T. Paget: That is the hon. Gentleman's opinion.

Mr. Hughes: The hon. and learned Gentleman will have the opportunity to vote against the Bill if he wishes to do so.

Mr. James McInnes: What are these squalid events in Glasgow?

Mr. Hughes: If my hon. Friend had read the reports in the Glasgow Press he would know that I am referring to a case in which 59 American sailors were lined up outside a brothel in Glasgow


only recently. If he does not think that that is unsavoury, then there is not much relevance in his interruption.
I believe that in introducing this Motion I am expressing a sentiment which, in these days, is shared very much by the people of this country. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of anti-American feeling in this country, largely as a result of a recent cynical speech by Mr. Dean Acheson, who has been speaking contemptuously about this country. He says that we have lost an empire and have not yet found a rôle. Because he thinks that we have not a rôle, the American Administration will find a rôle for us—and that is to put us in the forefront of the nuclear danger without any of the safeguards which are afforded to the American public in the way of air raid shelters and similar protection.
There are many people in this country who are not content that we should just carry out the instructions and the mandate of Mr. Dean Acheson and the Americans for whom he speaks. We know the rôle which we are supposed to take—the rôle of supplying conscript cannon fodder while the Americans supply the H-bomb.
I believe that the introduction of my proposed Bill would enable the House, for the first time, to discuss the full implications of this agreement and would result in this country, far from being in greater danger, being in a far safer position than ever before.
We are asked: what about the Russians? In the City of Glasgow and the west of Scotland we do not think that the Russians, that Mr. Khrushohey and the Communists, are our greatest enemies. The greatest enemy of the people of Scotland at present is unemployment and the collapse of the whole social and industrial fabric as a result of the failure to plan ahead. The people of Scotland would have a great sense of relief if a Bill of this kind were submitted to the free discussion and deliberation which it deserves, and all the issues carefully explained and debated.

3.56 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: I ask the House not to give leave to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) to introduce the Bill. The hon.

Member has used the occasion to whip up anti-American feeling, as he sometimes does. The effect of this country unilaterally denouncing the agreement which we have with the Americans by which they place a base at the Holy Loch, without any other arrangements being made at Ole time, would give clear notice that there are differences between the United Kingdom and the United States and would indicate that this country no longer desires to co-operate with the United States in an alliance.
It is true that at the moment discussions are taking place on what the weapon policy of the alliance should be. From time to time there is bound to be a technical and financial reappraisal, and in an alliance there are bound to be difficulties of control of the extraordinary weapons which we have to have today. But none of these discussions and these difficulties touches the fundamental unity of the alliance, which has been the cornerstone of the foreign policies of both Governments since the war.
Nor is it true that the efficacy and good sense of the alliance depends upon the efficiency of any particular weapon which may be used in the alliance. I have no doubt that our denunciation of this agreement would lead to the fragmentation of the West, and the prospect would be that the countries of the West, doubting the resolution of their allies and doubting their own power to resist the constant pressure of Communism, would make terms sooner or later, and perhaps sooner rather than later, with the Communist Powers—

Mr. Sydney Silverman: What is wrong with that?

Mr. Kershaw: The hon. Member has his sympathies, and most of us have others. These countries would sooner or later be engulfed in the Red flood. I would point out that if they sacrificed their liberties in this way they might not necessarily purchase their tranquillity, because it might mean that in the confusion of the break-up of the Western Alliance, some impulse of anger or despair would spark off a military action which in itself could lead to the nuclear holocaust that we wish to avoid.
A united alliance would be very much less likely to be attacked, first, because of its strength, and, secondly, because of its ability to make a graduated response to whatever aggression was offered. Because of its array of armament it would be unnecessary for it to resort at once to the nuclear stage, as would be necessary if only one nuclear bomb, for example, were available to it.
As we know—this is part of the discussions which are taking place between the United Kingdom and the United States today—the cost of these new weapons, and the difficulty of creating them, are so enormous that no one country can hope to arm itself with the full gamut of weapons. Therefore, only an alliance can afford the full range which lends the alliance the flexibility of response.
I therefore believe that an alliance, strong and armed at all points, is far less likely to provoke aggression, and if aggression occurs it is far more likely to be able to deal with it than are individual nations, which might be frightened into error or into some military action. I conclude, therefore, that the Holy Loch base, whilst it may not last for ever, nevertheless should never be terminated by unilateral declaration such as is proposed in the Bill.
I ask myself why the Bill deals only with the Polaris base. After all, we have bombers and we have missiles, in themselves more provocative because they are first-strike weapons. The Polaris base is not an interesting target for the Russians. The submarine is. The submarine is a second-strike weapon which of itself and by its nature should not be detected and, at the moment, so far as one knows, cannot be detected when it is on station. Not even a sudden impulse by the Russians to seek to strike out the submarines whilst they were at the Holy Loch would avail them, because we and they know that there are all the time at sea other submarines which would survive to take their revenge.

Therefore, not even while the submarines are at the Holy Loch is this a target worth the Russians' while. Further, we know that during the Cuban crisis not only the submarines, but also the "Proteus", sailed from the Holy Loch, and it is standing argument on its head to say that that makes it a more dangerous and not a less dangerous objective.

The second curious feature of the hon. Member's constant preoccupation with the Holy Loch is his assumption that his fellow Scots are in a constant sweat of anxiety about this base. I wonder whether Scotsmen really relish his description of them as being almost permanently in a blue funk. No one can think calmly of a nuclear exchange, but if it is a question—and it is the question—rather of keeping one's nerve and courage over a period of years in order to prevent a nuclear war breaking out at all, I know of no people better than the Scots who are more likely to last the course.

I suppose that the hon. Gentleman uses his arguments as pegs for his dislike of all weapons and all military arrangements. This is a frank attitude which the House respects in him, albeit the arguments are addressed, not by him perhaps but by others, very much more often to this country than they are to Communist countries. At all events, the Bill would receive the support not only of the pacifists, whose position one respects, but also of those with motives less pure and less noble who are not unwilling to see the West break up and a new order of things instituted, a new order of things in which there will be no room for pacifists, no room for democracy, and certainly no room for the hon. Member for South Ayrshire. I therefore ask the House not give the hon. Member leave to bring in the Bill.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 12 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House divided: Ayes 34, Noes 177.

Division No. 17.]
AYES
[4.2 p.m.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)


Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Carmichael, Neil
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)


Bowler, Frank
Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Edelman, Maurice




Fernyhough, E.
Owen, Will
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Parkin, B. T.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Forman, J. C.
Pavitt, Laurence
Warbey, William


Galpern, Sir Myer
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Watkins, Tudor


Greenwood, Anthony
Probert, Arthur
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

Zilliacus, K.


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Rankin, John



Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Reid, William
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Upton, Marcus
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Mr. Emrys Hughes and


Mackie, John (Enfield, East)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Mr William Baxter.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Gilmour, Sir John
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.


Ash ton, Sir Hubert
Goodhart, Philip
Orr-Ewing, C. Ian


Atkins, Humphrey
Goodhew, Victor
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)
Gower, Raymond
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)


Barber, Anthony
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Barlow, Sir John
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)


Bell, Ronald
Hastings, Stephen
Peel, John


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Hay, John
Pllkington, Sir Richard


Berkeley, Humphry
Hiley, Joseph
Pitt, Dame Edith


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Hirst, Geoffrey
Pott, Perclvall


Bidgood, John C.
Hocking, Philip N.
Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch


Biffen, John
Holland, Philip
Prior, J. M. L.


Biggs-Davison, John
Hollingworth, John
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Bingham, R. M.
Hornby, R. P.
Pym, Francis


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Hornsby-Smlth, Rt. Hon. Dame P.
Rawlinson, Sir Peter


Bishop, F. P.
Hughes-Young, Michael
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Black, Sir Cyril
Hutchison, Michael
Rees, Hugh


Bossom, Clive
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Renton, Rt. Hon. David


Bourne-Arton, A.
Jennings, J. C.
Robertson, Sir D. (C'thn's &amp; S'th'ld)


Box, Donald
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Braine, Bernard
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Russell, Ronald


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S)
St. Clair, M.


Buck, Antony
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Scott-Hopkine, James


Bullard, Denys
Kirk, Peter
Sevmour, Leslle


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Kitson, Timothy



Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)

Sharpies, Richard


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Skeet, T. H. H.


Cary, Sir Robert
Leavey, J. A.
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)


Channon, H. P. G.
Lindsay, Sir Martin
Smithers, Peter


Chataway, Christopher
Litchfield, Capt. John
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Chichester-Clark, R.
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Stodart, J. A.


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Longbottom, Charles
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Cleaver, Leonard
Longden, Gilbert
Studholme, Sir Henry


Cooke, Robert
Loveys, Walter H.
Summers, Sir Spencer


Cordeaux, Lt. -Col. J. K.
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Tapsell, Peter


Costain, A. P.
McArthur, Ian
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)


Craddock, Sir Beresford
McLaren, Martin
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Critchley, Julian
Maclean, SirFltzroy (Bute&amp;N.Ayrs)
Temple, John M.


Cunningham, Knox
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Curran, Charles
McMaster. Stanley R.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Dance, James
Macpherson, Rt. Hn. Niall (Dumfries)
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon


Doughty, Charles
Maddan, Martin
Turner, Colin


Duncan, Sir James
Maginnis, John E.
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Maitland, Sir John
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Elllott, R. W. (Nwcastle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Marshall, Douglas
Vane, W. M. F.


Emery, Peter
Mason, Roy
Vickers, Miss Joan


Errington, Sir Eric
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Matthews, Gordon (Merlden)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


Fell, Anthony
Mawby, Ray
Webster, David


Finlay, Graeme

Wells, John (Maidstone)


Fisher, Nigel
Maxwell-Hyalop, R. J.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Fletcher, Eric
Mills, Stratton
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Miscampbell, Norman
Wise, A. R.


Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Nabarro, Gerald
Woodhouse, C. M.


Gammans, Lady
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Worsley, Marcus


Gardner, Edward
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey



Gibson-Watt, David
Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk Central)
Oakehott, Sir Hendrle
Mr. Kershaw and Mr. Ridley.

VOLUNTARY OVERSEAS SERVICES

4.13 p.m.

Sir John Maitland: I beg to move,
That this House, having regard to the excellent work of the organisations concerned with sending volunteers overseas to help in underdeveloped countries, urges Her Majesty's Government to give every assistance to ensure the expansion and development of this work.
For generations past it has been the custom for young men and women from this country to give their services in helping to improve the condition of the people living in the under-developed parts of the world. In the past, most of them have served in official capacities, but there has always been a steady flow of purely voluntary workers as well. Nor is it easy to separate the salaried work of officials from the voluntary work that they have so often undertaken as part of their duties. Not only the Commonwealth countries, but many under-developed and developing countries have paid tribute to the work done by men and women from these islands to help to improve conditions in those countries.
Today, when new countries are emerging so rapidly, because men would rather control their own difficult destinies than remain secure even under the most benevolent paternalism, we have to make a new approach. There are many gaps to be filled in these new countries. In education, in the health services, and in the various techniques, both industrial and social, there are not enough people to go round and even when there are competent administrators these still need help and co-operation.
This situation has offered a tremendous challenge which the country's various voluntary services have met with alacrity, and since one of the objects of this Motion is to draw attention to the work they have done, I hope that the House will forgive me if I describe some of their activities.
First, there is the United Nations Association. Since the war, the Association has set up camps, mostly in Europe, to enable volunteers to carry out short-term service—generally to combat some national emergency, or to deal with some specific object and need. It has now extended its work all over the world,

and is at present engaged in sending 15 graduate volunteers overseas and to be responsible for projects in underdeveloped countries.
Next, there is the International Voluntary Service, which is the British branch of "Service Civil International", an organisation started by a Swiss engineer after the First World War. That has carried out very much the same sort of work as has the United Nations Association. It has gone in for camps, with short-service volunteers, but it, too, is extending its work, and is sending out volunteers to distant countries—longterm volunteers, by which I mean those who are going out for at least a year. Government help is being made available to these three organisations. There is also the National Union of Students which, as everyone knows its members would expect, is well in on this business, and is sending graduate volunteers overseas.
I have left till last the Voluntary Service Overseas organisation, because its activities are on a basis slightly different from the bodies whose work I have very briefly described. I should, therefore, like to describe its activities rather more fully. It is always difficult, and generally dangerous, to try to allot responsibility for a brilliant idea to any one person or to a number of persons, but I am quite certain that nobody who has knowledge of this movement could possibly fail to mention Mr. Alec Dickson, who, backed by the present Bishop of Norwich, launched this scheme in 1958.
Unlike the other bodies I have mentioned, this organisation has specialised in sending volunteers recruited from boys and girls who have just left school and have to fill in, as they so often have to do, that year before going to the universities, or who may be able to spare a year before entering their jobs or professions. From quite small beginnings, the V.S.O. has this year sent 286 young people abroad, including a proportion of industrial apprentices, who are slightly older. It is most important to realise that this growing and virile organisation could send 400 school leavers, plus 150 graduates, in 1963–64 if the necessary finance were forthcoming.
This scheme is of great value to those taking part in it. They leave this


country as boys and girls, and come back as men and women. They live and work on terms of complete equality with those whom they are visiting. They learn to take as well as to give. They are employed in a hundred capacities, and nobody in his sense could say that theirs is a paternal approach. If any doubt exists that their services are not really worth while, the doubters should consult the countless letters which V.S.O. regularly receive from their hosts.
I will quote from only some of the letters which have been received and which concern the boys and girls who go out to these territories. This letter is from a chief education officer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya:
I think that you will he interested to know that I met one of your lads way back of beyond and was most impressed. I can't remember his name, but he was working in a tiny village school in Kota Belud. He had so identified himself with those around him that they fairly worshipped him. His command of Malay astonished me, whilst his obvious wholehearted devotion to his work —without being a 'crank'—was really an inspiration. He was almost in tears at the thought of leaving in August and was most insistent that I ask the Director to send another to take his place.
Another letter is from the British Embassy in Lomé, Togoland, and states:
I would like you to know that A has been an outstanding success. His name seems to be a by-word with anyone who has been to Sokodé. All those he has come in contact with, from the Minister of Education downwards, speak extremely highly of him.
The next letter is from the general secretary of the Y.M.C.A. of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It refers to one of the arpprentice recruits I mentioned earlier and states:
B has been a great success. He has made a great many friends in Northern Rhodesia, and built up the Y.M.C.A. in such a way that the races mix quite naturally in the Y.M.C. Club, which he rules with a rod of iron. I do not know of a place in the Federation where the common man of our several races mixes so naturally as he does in Lusaka Y.M.C.A. This has been due to a great extent to the uninhibited charm of this broad Yorkshireman who treats all men as equals, and all men equally.
This is an interesting letter from Thailand. The dean of the S.E.A.T.O. Graduate School of Engineering in Bangkok writes:
I am writing to report that the two young men sponsored by your organisation to work at this school have turned out to be more helpful than we had ever hoped. Without

them we could hardly have carried out our laboratory and research projects successfully this past term. They have worked willingly at all manner of jobs and with all kinds of people.
My final quotation is from a letter written by the chairman of the Methodist Mission in the British Solomon Islands. It states:
We have had two V.S.O.s—X and Y. They came to us through arrangements made by the Chief Education Officer of the Protectorate. They are doing a first-class job and we have been grateful for their help.
The next part of the letter is particularly interesting, for it states:
Because X is about the age of some of the older ones, her example often carries greater weight than the precepts of an older person.
Obviously, I could go on at length quoting from letters such as these. It is clear that the secret of success is that these young people work and live with the people with whom they are working. Any authority they have and any good they do comes from their own personalities and principles—and not from any outside backing or authority.
Before I deal with the question of what we are doing and what can be done in the future, I must remind hon. Members that before he set up the Peace Corps, President Kennedy discussed the project with this organisation. We admire President Kennedy for his action in setting up the Peace Corps and we are sure that his great venture will be of immense value to mankind. However, we should sometimes remind ourselves that we in this country have for many years been doing the same kind of work.
As I mentioned, the British Government have been giving grants to these crganisations and have set up a coordinating committee to deal with their various activities under Sir John Lockwood. The Department of Technical Co-operation, the Government Department concerned, is anxious to extend this work and increase the number of overseas volunteers who have graduated either at universities or who have qualified at technical colleges or similar institutions. The Government wish to make it possible for these young men and women to work for a year or more in the under-developed parts of the world—not necessarily the Commonwealth—before entering a profession or selecting a job.
It is hoped that 250 such volunteers will be available in the coming year. This additional flow of skilled men and women should be of immense value. There will, of course, be a quick turnover in these volunteers, but I do not for a moment think that we should regard that as altogether a disadvantage. Times are changing rapidly and this means that a steady flow of new blood and new ideas in those parts of the world which really need them will be provided.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: On two occasions the hon. Member has referred to graduates. In the interests of accuracy, would he bear in mind the fact that the demand is not only for graduates, but also for undergraduates?

Sir J. Maitland: I did mention those who are not only graduates when I said that the demand was also for those qualified in technical colleges or similar institutions. In the context of what I have been saying I have been referring to people who have actually qualified. It is not altogether for undergraduates in this respect, because they come under the other scheme to which I referred. This is an extension in which the Department of Technical Co-operation is interested.
I turn now to the second part of my Motion which
… urges Her Majesty's Government to give every assistance to ensure the expansion and development of this work.
From what I have said it is clear that the Government are helping, but if I have succeeded in convincing the House that these activities are worth while—and, in my view, it is one of the most worth-while things we do—it is certain that a good deal more could be done to extend it.
At present, it costs about £400 to send a school leaver overseas for a year and about £800 to send a graduate overseas for a similar period. It is interesting to note that under the American Peace Corps scheme it costs more than £3,000 to send a Peace Corps young man or woman out into the world. Naturally, there is no cost to the participants, and by far the greater proportion of the costs involved must be raised from voluntary subscription.
I plead with the Government to bear at least half of this cost. They should,

in fact, subscribe pound for pound to the money raised from voluntary sources. If not, it may not be possible to fill the many projects which are asking for volunteers. If the Government do not contribute more, many of the men and women who are anxious to give their services in this way will be disappointed and will lose the opportunity of performing a service which may be of value to them all their lives.
Further, we owe a duty—perhaps more than any other country—to the vast areas of the world which in the past we have guided, governed and, finally, led to independence. I do not expect the Minister to give a final answer to this appeal at this stage, but I urge him to give this matter his fullest consideration so that both the younger and older volunteers get equal treatment from the Government.
I am encouraged by the fact that the Government are already deeply committed to help the movement. The Gracious Speech which opened the Session contained the words:
My Ministers will encourage men and women from this country to offer their services for work in developing countries overseas, whether in the service of the other Governments concerned, as specialist advisers, or under schemes of voluntary recruitment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th October, 1962; Vol. 666, c. 5.]
Let us now see the practical application of those words.
I am often taken to task by members of the public who say that Parliament and Governments are too materialistic. Thank heaven that they are. In this difficult and complicated world we should not get far unless Governments were materialistic. Let us consider the reason for that materialism. It is surely in order to build a firm platform for our national life so that we can exercise our individual freedom to do things which are not materialistic, such things as voluntary overseas service. It is in that spirit that I commend the Motion to the House.

4.31 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: I suppose that I must begin, in accordance with the custom of the House, by declaring an interest, as I am a member of the Council of Voluntary Service Overseas, a position which I share with some other hon. Members. The House


might allow me, as the speaker who is immediately following the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) to thank him most sincerely for raising this matter, and for the manner in which he has done it. I am sure, also, that the voluntary societies will be most grateful to him. I wish to support very briefly what he has said.
I thought that one of the hon. Member's closing paragraphs expressed extremely well the basic philosophy behind this kind of work—that while we all accept that Governments have a duty to create conditions in which this sort of work can go on, there is a need today for a voluntary effort, an idealistic effort, an unselfish effort on this basis of Government assistance. The voluntary societies, and, certainly, Voluntary Service Overseas, are engaged in a cooperative effort. This is not an operation carried out by superior people going down graciously to assist people whom they may consider inferior to themselves, Very far from it. This is a co-operative effort by people from this country with people of other countries to tackle problems which they share.
In passing, although this is going a little outside the Motion, I might say that I have personally regretted that the West and Her Majesty's Government, in particular, have not been able to build a fully professional service to fulfil these enormous demands for trained personnel all over Africa, Asia, and, indeed, South America. We have only to consider what happened in the Congo to see that the greatest and most urgent task of the Western world is to provide the skill to assist these people to run their own countries. I am not talking about providing top-level skills, but the teachers, the nurses, managers, and all the people who make up a civilised community.
We should remember the efforts made, some on a voluntary basis, to bring people from Africa and Asia for training in this country. It must be said that all this work is in a sense a process of training and, therefore, working people out of the jobs which they are at present doing. It is to enable the people of the emergent territories to conduct their affairs in the best possible way. Therefore, there is a case both for bringing people from those countries into this country

and for sending people out to those territories.
I should like to support what the hon. Member for Horncastle said about the work done by students, and to emphasise that students are very keen to extend what they are doing. They are people who find it difficult to provide the money and, here again, voluntary funds and the Government may be able to help. But there is also the position of senior staff in the universities and I ask the Government to look at the possibility of allowing universities to hold a certain number of people on their books while they are loaned to Africa and Asia. It is difficult for a young university lecturer, perhaps with a family, to take a two-year appointment in Africa which he would very much like to do, when he cannot be sure that he will get a job when he returns to this country. I should be grateful if the Government would look into that.
Before supporting the hon. Member on Voluntary Service Overseas, I should like to mention Mr. William Clark, who has done a great deal of useful work in this field. I am sure that the Government are aware of his reports. If they are not, they Should study them at once. As for V.S.O., I join the hon. Member in paying tribute to Mr. Dickson. He was one of the moving spirits of the organisation and he has shown that personal drive and interest which is absolutely essential if this type of organisation is to fulfil its function.
As has been said, the Service is engaged in sending out men and women to work with people in countries overseas. The figure of 286 this year could easily go up to 1,000 if the Service had the funds and the means to send them. It is difficult to exaggerate the benefits that this would provide. The numbers are small and the amount of work accomplished, looked at in a world context, may also be small, but the spirit behind it is of incalculable value not only to the countries to which these young people go but, I emphasise, of immense value also to this country.
This is not a one-sided arrangement. We have everything to gain from it. I have talked to some of these young people, as, no doubt, has the hon. Member, who has read out some of their


letters. They have all enjoyed this work and have thought it to be immensely worth while. All of those to whom I have spoken have felt that it is just the kind of opportunity which it is difficult to find sometimes in the modern world and which they so much welcome.
Voluntary Service Overseas, provided that it can get the money and machinery to handle them, would welcome more applications. It is already sending out people from all types of backgrounds, from the independent schools and the grammar schools and from industry. Here, I should say a word in praise of the way in which British industry has supported this and other organisations. The present budget of the Service is about £100,000—I shall be corrected on this if I am wrong—and I think that the Government grant for 1962–63 is £13,200.
The House will see that there is a considerable gap to be filled. The grant at which the Service aimed was £70,000 and perhaps I may draw the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the fact that its application was, if not presented, certainly backed by no less a person than an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer and, therefore, we may take it, had been carefully considered.
V.S.O. is carrying out an appeal which is extremely successful. It is not an organisation—and here I know the hon. Gentleman will agree with me—which wants to be dependent on Government aid; far from it. But I think it has suggested that a pound-for-pound basis against what it can raise will not be unreasonable, and I agree. It certainly does not want to become a stereotyped organisation. It does not want to become a part of what is popularly called the Establishment. As I emphasised at the beginning of my remarks, this is very much a personal effort. It is a question of getting hold of the right people who want to do this work, and putting them into the right places where they will really co-operate in the work.
Equally, it is fair to say that immense care must be taken before young people are sent overseas. Here, may I express gratitude to the British Council, which has helped enormously. V.S.O. is by no means bound up with the British Council, or with any official body, but

the British Council has been most useful in checking accommodation and seeing that these people are properly received when they arrive overseas. I therefore certainly add my voice, for what it is worth, to the hon. Gentleman's plea.
I do not make this plea exclusively on behalf of this organisation. There are other very admirable organisations. There are the Churches, the Quakers, and so forth, who have been doing this work for a long time and they deserve the thanks of the House and of the country and all the support that they can get.
I should like to conclude by adding a quotation to those which have already been given. This is from Lord Mountbatten, referring to Volunteers in the West Indies. It ends in this fashion:
I was able to meet the volunteers in British Guiana, Jamaica and British Honduras. Everyone is loud in praise of what they are doing, and, indeed Sir Kenneth Blackburne went as far as to say that he would sooner have his four volunteers than another £4000 on his British Information Budget
I should like to impress upon the Government that they are certainly getting value for money, and that, while we all recognise the claims upon their generosity, there can be few more fruitful fields for laying out money than the one that we are discussing today.

4.42 p.m.

Miss Joan Vickers: I am very glad to have the opportunity, first, of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) on his choice of subject, and of following the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond).
I did not quite understand what the right hon. Gentleman meant when he referred to professional services. The one thing about the service which we are discussing today is that we do not send people to The various countries unless they are asked to be sent there. In professional services people have to think of their professional careers in a country, whereas the people whom we are discussing in the various voluntary organisations are not dependent on this type of work for their careers.

Mr. Grimond: I do not want unnecessarily to interrupt the hon. Lady, but I was talking about two entirely different things. I said that it was a


pity that in such organisations as the United Nations we have not built up a professional service, which would not take the place of Voluntary Service Overseas, but would do a quite different job. I distinguished clearly between the two.

Miss Vickers: I am glad that that misapprehension has been corrected. One should remember, however, that the United Nations is working in many fields all over the world.
I have been in many countries and have seen the work particularly of the V.S.O.s, and I should like to support the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about Jamaica and the saving in money to the British Information Centre. The amount involved, I believe, is £4,000; that is what I heard when I was in Jamaica.
Before I begin to discuss the subject of V.S.O., I would mention that for a number of years there have been many other organisations performing voluntary work, and they have been in the field longer. It is only fair to remember the Soroptimists, who do a great deal of work, and the business and professional women, too, who are very active. Then there is the Red Cross, which has done untold good, particularly for health and hygiene in various countries. There are the Corona Club, the Y.W.C.A., the Y.M.C.A., Toc H, the Christian Fellowship, the Women's Institutes and the Salvation Army, to mention only a few of the older organisations that have been doing voluntary work for some time.
I had an opportunity of seeing the young people in V.S.O. working overseas, and I should like particularly to refer to British Honduras in this connection. I was in Hatteville, 16 miles from Belize, which had been particularly devastated by one of the worst 'hurricanes in history. They were doing an unusual job helping in a camp village and fitting into a life that was not even the life of the 'inhabitants themselves. In other words, they had to go there and help the inhabitants to settle into a new and rather rough type of village. To see them at work, realising that each volunteer had a completely different background, was particularly inspiring. The background of these boys and girls was completely different, too, to the local people, but it did not seem to matter.
They managed to fit in. They did not particularly like the food, but that was, I think, the only difficulty. What was impressive was the spirit with which they were trying to build up this village. I read in a report a quotation from one of the volunteers. He said:
It is a wonderful feeling to walk down any street in Belize and be greeted with a chorus of salutations. It's impossible to be unhappy here, if only because everyone insists on being your friend.
I think that everyone insisted on being their friends because they had shown themselves to be so friendly and helpful in such difficult circumstances.
I have also had an opportunity of going to Nigeria recently and seeing the graduate V.S.O.s in the universities. To them, too, a tribute is due. They had finished their university education. Perhaps they are a little uncertain of what will happen to them in the future, but they take this risk of going overseas in a voluntary capacity. It takes a lot of courage to go to another country in these circumstances, in this uncertain state of a future career.
Mention has been made of co-operation from various business firms, and I gather that there are about 12 firms which send apprentices overseas. Rolls-Royce has given a very good lead. I hope that more firms will be willing to let apprentices go overseas, though I know that there is some difficulty. I know that we are not used to mobility of labour, as firms in America are, and when a man has been trained by a firm it does not want to lose him. I think that firms would send students and apprentices overseas if they realised the experience would be of great value. I have seen an apprentice working in a garage alongside local apprentices in Sarawak, and I think that the benefit to these young men working together is immense. I sincerely hope the Government will do all they can to encourage more firms to come into this scheme.
One of the great advantages of this scheme is that the individual does not go to a country to take charge. He goes to work alongside the people of the country concerned. The list of occupations already involved is most impressive. I would mention but a few, beginning with agriculture. I have seen a young man steering a wooden plough


drawn by oxen. That is something he had never seen in this country, and yet that young man performed the task very well and kept his place in line with the others.
Another job is working in pottery and handicrafts. I think that joining the police cadets is invaluable. Community centres are being assisted by the volunteers, and one volunteer is an assistant district officer. Others—this applies particularly to the girls—are doing domestic training. One Rolls-Royce student is working in a rehabilitation centre. Other volunteers are working for the Tibetan child refugees in India, a particularly interesting and important job. Others, again, are working for the blind in Iran. Some are with the Boys' Brigade, and others are doing youth work and nursing.
There is one class of student that I wish to see encouraged to go overseas, that is, medical students. I understand that St. Mary's Hospital is very keen on this and allows its students to go out for one year. There is one student volunteer at the moment in Amman, and I think that one went out to Persia following the recent earthquake, Another is working for the Save the Children Fund.
I have a question to put to my right hon. Friend about the preparations which volunteers receive before they go overseas. I understand that they have about one week's training, and G.V.O.S.s have two weeks' training. I gather that the London County Council proposes to give about three weeks' training to those who are to help with teaching. Is the training sufficient? I have worked overseas myself in East and Central Africa, in Malaya, and in Indonesia, and I feel that, before going out to work overseas, one should know a considerable amount about the country to which one is going.
Also, I have found that the volunteers have not always had the necessary equipment. I have heard of cases in Nigeria, for instance, where a girl has been sent out with inadequate bedding equipment. It is not always easy for the volunteers to discuss these matters with the British Council representatives, who are always helpful, or to obtain the necessary equipment, especially if it is

required in a rather out-of-the-way village.
The volunteers should have a knowledge of the country to which they are going, of the type of clothing to wear, the type of food which they will eat, and of the people they are to meet. If possible, a handbook of easy sentences in the language of the country they will be living in would be a very great advantage to the young people.
I understand that more girls are now going overseas. About 60 girls are working in 25 different countries, and I hope that the movement will develop among girls. The scheme was not started for them as early as it was for boys, and I hope that it will be pressed forward. In many cases, it is not always quite so important for girls as it is for boys to earn their living; at least, their need may not be quite so pressing. I know of two or three—they must have had very kind fiancés—who were going out for a year and then coming back to get married. If girls can gain experience overseas in this way, it will be invaluable to them in future life.
The education of women and girls both in schools and in club life is very important for the developing countries. I hope, therefore, that the number of girl volunteers will be brought up to the number of boys in the fairly near future.
There have been references already to the British Council. The British Council is doing excellent work, giving its services free. I should much prefer the volunteers to be in touch with the British Council rather than the High Commissioner's office. There is nothing against the High Commissioners, who are doing an excellent job in the various countries, but I believe that it is best for the voluntary organisation to keep away from the "Establishment", if possible, and, for that reason, I hope that all the work will be done through the British Council.
The main point in favour of the V.S.O. organisation is that volunteers cannot go to any country unless they are welcome. In other words, the country has to ask for them before they can be sent. For the future, I would like to make one or two suggestions.
First, how widely known is the scheme? Is anything done to visit schools, regularly, in order to tell them about


this organisation and others which young people can join on leaving school? We are going through a period when there is more unemployment, and quite a number of juveniles cannot readily find jobs on leaving school. I know that school-leavers of 17 years of age cannot be taken on and must wait until they are 18, but, if more young people of 17 knew about the scheme, it might be possible for them to do a little preliminary training and go out immediately on attaining the age of 18 years.
How much encouragement is given to graduates who have language degrees? It would be good experience for them to go to the various countries and use the languages which they have learned at university, and I hope that they will be encouraged to go out so that they can be fitted into the countries whose languages they have learned. Also, will my right hon. Friend encourage more firms to realise how much apprentices can benefit from the scheme?
I hope that the scheme will not remain entirely a one-way scheme. Is it possible to encourage people from overseas to come to this country? With the development of education in countries overseas, nothing but good could come from the development of a two-way traffic.
In supporting the Motion, I hope that the Government will realise that this is a scheme by which the future peace of the world may be greatly helped. The future peace of the world depends on better understanding between young people, and in this all the volunteers can help. I only wish that I were 18 again. I should love to take part in this type of work.
To illustrate what I mean, I will read an extract from a letter which came from a volunteer in the South Cameroons. This young man wrote:
This seems to me to have been one of the important things I have gained—to see my life and ideas in England in a new perspective; to find certain ideas which I had always taken for granted actually questioned and denied… Deeper than this, on the expeditions I began to realise the value of human relationships, of mutual trust and faith as I had never done before. So many of my relationships with other people had been on a basis of irony …
and he goes on in quite a long letter to show what a great benefit the scheme has been to him.
I would stress, also, the benefit to the countries to which the volunteers go, and I hope that the scheme will continue and grow in the future and increase its value both to ourselves and to the countries overseas which the volunteers serve.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: I join with other hon. and right hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) on his choice of subject. He has done a great service to the House and to the movement in which he is interested by initiating this debate. I follow him and previous speakers in paying a tribute to the Voluntary Service Overseas and other organisations and to the volunteers themselves.
The main question to which I shall address myself, however, is whether we are setting about the work in the right way. I submit to the House that Britain ought to adopt the idea of organising a Peace Corps along the lines of the American Peace Corps. I suggest this against the background of a world situation in which the gap between the standard of living in the richer countries and the standard of living of two-thirds of the human race is widening every year. I believe that our country and every other country in the Western world has a challenge to meet and ought to be doing far more than is being done already.
We are a little too inclined, in a debate of this kind to congratulate ourselves on what is being done and on the effort being put in by these volunteers and organisations. Of course, we can congratulate ourselves as a country. We can feel proud of what is being done and can congratulate these people on what they are doing, but we must measure the total effort against the total need.
I remind the Minister that just over a year ago Her Majesty's Government at the United Nations, voted for a resolution to make the 1960s a Development Decade with the object that by 1970 the rate of growth of the poorer countries should be 5 per cent. per annum as against the present rate of just over 3 per cent. This is a modest and practical objective which must be achieved if we are to win the race between the growth of the wealth of the poorer countries and the growth of population. The


population explosion with which we are faced in the rest of the century compels us to accept and to meet a target of that sort.
If we are to meet this target, we must do more in the form of capital aid and to adjust our trading policies to the needs of these countries. Above all, we must do more in technical assistance and to encourage people to go from the more developed countries to the less developed countries in considerable numbers. In concentrating on this aspect of the problem, we are doing something in line with our traditions because one of the biggest and most constructive parts of the British Empire story is the story of the people who worked in Colonies as administrators, teachers and experts and gave their skill and experience in the development of the countries to which they went.
However, as so many of our Colonies have become self-governing, which most of us think is a good thing, one of the unhappy aspects has been the large number of experts and administrators who have come home. When Malaya became independent 31 per cent. of the British personnel there came home. When Sudan became independent 86 per cent. of them came home. However, there the political situation was different. Things were more difficult for them and, therefore, the great majority left. At this moment, large numbers of people are coming back from the East African territories which are becoming, or are about to become independent.
We must, therefore, have a strategy for replacing a situation in which a small number of people devoted their lives to these territories by a new situation in which larger numbers of people spend a smaller amount of time in them—say, one, two or three years. That applies to people of various kinds—for instance, to managerial people in their forties and fifties as well as to young people filling in the gap between school and university. People of all kinds and ages and at different levels of skill are needed, but all of them must have something positive to contribute. It is against that background that I question the Government's policy in simply trying to co-ordinate the activities of the voluntary bodies. Something far more positive is required.
Before I develop the theme about the Peace Corps, I wish to join in the tributes paid to Voluntary Service Overseas and to other organisations. I have read many of the letters from people in the territories concerned, same of which have been quoted by previous speakers, and I do not wish to take time by quoting others, but the writers of them pay an eloquent tribute to the work done by these volunteers and refer to the value attached to them.
I agree with the point which the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Miss Vickers) made about apprentices going overseas. It appears from the Report which I have here that in the twelve months from the summer of 1961 to the summer of 1962 ten firms financed a total of 27 volunteer apprentices. Of that 27, 12 were sent by one firm, Rolls-Royce Limited. This is a very tiny effort for an industrial country of our size. It is good as far as it goes, but much more should be done. Apart from the good that it would do to the apprentices and to the countries to which they go, it would be of long term advantage to the firms in helping these people to become eventually more useful, capable and adaptable members of the firms in which they work. I hope that there will be a very big expansion of this sort of thing.
My main criticism is that we must adopt an entirely new strategy. The Government appear to be relying on two things. In voluntary effort by the undergraduate or by young people between 18 and the early twenties, they are to encourage and co-ordinate the activities of Voluntary Service Overseas and other similar bodies. They also have a number of schemes for people who will go out on more normal terms of contract, such as the Overseas Service Aid Scheme. My first criticism is that all this is far too complicated. The effort is not simplified and is not presented to those who might wish to go overseas in a sufficiently dramatic form.
The great success of the United States Peace Corps has captured the imagination of large numbers of idealistic young people in that country. I returned a month ago from a tour in the United States as the guest of the State Department. I was there for seven weeks. I saw many very interesting things, some


of which I approved of and some of which I disapproved of. One of the things of which I most approved was the Peace Corps. I spent a morning at the Peace Corps headquarters in Washington and discussed the problem with the people there. Later, in Los Angeles, I saw some of the training being carried out at the University of California of volunteers destined to go to Nigeria as teachers. On both occasions I was able to discuss some of the problems involved.
I agree with the hon. Member for Horncastle that in drawing up this scheme the United States copied, very wisely I think, many of the ideas of voluntary organisations in this country. They also copied some of the methods of the Outward Bound organisation in evolving their physical training ideas for Peace Corps volunteers. But this is typical of what happens in so many different fields. A good idea is started in Britain and is copied and developed on a bigger scale in America. We often lack the drive and the capacity to carry through our good ideas until they operate on a sufficiently big scale—or we lack them under this Government; but I do not want to introduce that note too much.
The impressive thing about the Peace Corps is the speed at which it has developed. It was only in January of last year that the original task force under Mr. Sargent Shriver was appointed by the President to draw up plans for a Peace Corps. In March, 1961, the President made an executive order setting up the Peace Corps on a temporary basis. It was not until the autumn of 1961 that the necessary legislation was passed through Congress, Yet by June this year there were already 1,000 volunteers at work in fifteen different countries and another 3,000 were in training. With the progress being made then and the plans in hand it was being said that by the end of this year there would be 5,000 people either at work or in training destined to go to 37 different countries. The objective is to double that to 10,000 if possible by next year.
When the idea of the Peace Carps was originally put forward during the Presidential election campaign and immediately afterwards there was a great deal of scepticism in the United

States about it. Many doubts were expressed. Similar doubts were expressed in this country. I do not think that it can be contradicted that most of those doubts have been found to be false. The Peace Corps has been a very great success.
Because there were doubts originally about how it might work, the plan in 1961 was to concentrate simply on having a pilot scheme and 300 to 500 volunteers working in different countries for a year or two and then to judge the results to whether it should expand. It has expanded much more quickly in the way that I have described because of the original success of volunteers who went overseas and the flood of demands from all over the world for more Peace Corps volunteers, including a great many demands from Commonwealth countries who cannot get enough of the people that they want to do this sort of work.
A great deal of care was taken in the planning and training of the Peace Corps to ensure that it was realistic. As with our own voluntary organisations, the people concerned go only to countries where they are invited to take part in their programmes. They work for the host Government or for a voluntary organisation in their country.
Those who work there do not receive any salary. They receive a living allowance to enable them to live on a comparable level with the people with whom they are working. The lessons brought out in that famous book, The Ugly American, of the way in which certain Americans overseas did more harm than good because they lived on a level so much higher than local people have been learned and applied in this respect.
One thing that the Americans do for these volunteers—and it is a good thing which I should like to be considered—is to pay them on their return a kind of rehabilitation allowance at the rate of 75 dollars for every month they have spent overseas. It could be considered by purists that this was in some way inconsistent with the voluntary spirit of the organisation. I do not agree. Those who volunteer and make a considerable sacrifice of their time and undertake this tremendously effective


work should be helped by the community to rehabilitate themselves, in exactly the same way as we recognise this principle for those who volunteer for our armed forces. When people go from Britain, they do a tremendously good job for us and we should help them in this way, not necessarily copying the precise rules of the Peace Corps, but in a similar form.
A great deal of care has been taken in the United States to select personnel by the application of rigorous standards. I very much agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Devonport about the need to give more comprehensive training to those who go overseas. My view is that under the kind of proposal which I have in mind, a more comprehensive training system should be provided with fairly rigorous selection procedures, too. In the American scheme, only a minority of those who apply are selected. Great care is taken to have people who are physically fit, who have the right personal qualities for the job and who have some kind of skill relevant to the country in question.

Sir J. Maitland: There are far more volunteers from this country than are selected. It is not easy to get selected. The boys and girls who are accepted undergo a close examination before they are chosen. It is impossible to give the proportion of acceptances, but selection is tough, as it should be.

Mr. Prentice: I accept that. I did not want to suggest that it was not so in our case. Probably the more valid criticism concerning our voluntary organisations is the lack of a sufficient training period. In the American scheme, they combine the two aspects and within the training period they reject those who do not respond properly to training.
I understood at Los Angeles that about 15 per cent. of those who began training either opted out of it or were dismissed because they were not suitable. An aspect of the American system which merits study on our part is training in the language and social customs of the country to which people go and intensive training in adapting the skill that is to be used, whether it is in teaching or anything else, to the needs of the

host country, as well as a great deal of physical training.
At the U.C.L.A., where I saw some of the training in progress, I attended a staff conference of those concerned with organising the training. Great care was taken by a large number of people of the faculty at the university. Many highly-placed people gave their time and great thought to the problems of adapting the training to the needs of the country concerned.
About 50 American universities are co-operating in this programme. That is a considerable number bearing in mind that the whole idea was started only in 1961. Not only universities are doing it, but other bodies, too. The Caterpillar Tractor Company is training a number of diesel mechanics who will go to Tunisia. The Tennessee Valley Authority is training people to work on a similar scheme in Brazil. Given the right leadership, we in this country could mobilise groups in the universities and in industry to take part in training schemes of this nature.
Briefly, the advantages of a scheme of this kind would be as follows. First, if we were able to do this, we could offer aid on a bigger scale. Only by the Government providing organisation and public money on the scale that is required can we get an expansion of this work to the extent that is needed. Secondly, it would provide a central clearing house. One of the difficulties of the existing system is that so many organisations are interested in it. I do not suggest that they should be driven out. They could operate beside the British Peace Corps, as in America other organisations operate alongside the Peace Corps and in co-operation with it.
I wrote to the Minister of State a few months ago about a girl aged 18 who wanted to do a year's work in a developing country between leaving school and starting at university. I do not criticise the Minister for the reply he sent me, because in the context of the present system it was probably the only reply that he could give. He said, however:
I regret that there are no vacancies here"—
that was, in the Department—
for which so young a person could be considered. My Department only recruits graduates … The only thing I can suggest is


that she should apply to one or two more of the bodies interested in sending volunteers overseas
He then gave addresses of some of the voluntary organisations. There should be a central clearing house for this kind of work where the whole effort could be co-ordinated and to which people could apply. It should not be made too difficult for a young person who suddenly decides to do this work to be put in touch with one of the proper channels without delay.
Another great advantage of having a British Peace Corps would be the simplicity of the title. The words Peace Corps" convey something dramatic to people. I remember, as a young man of 17, joining the Local Defence Volunteers and later being greatly cheered when the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) decided that they should be known instead as the Home Guard, which was a more simple, dramatic and less bureaucratic title. We must think in terms of capturing people's imagination in this way. A Peace Corps could capture people's imagination, whereas a host of separate organisations with different names would not have the same effect.
My final point is that by doing work of this nature the whole nation would be taking part. We would be taking part financially, as we ought to be. Whereas the greater part of the effort and sacrifice is, and must continue to be, made by those who volunteer, this us an effort in which all of us and all the people of the country should be involved to a far greater extent.
I do not know what arguments will be brought forward by the Minister of State against what I am saying, but perhaps I can anticipate two possible lines. The right hon. Gentleman might suggest that the idea of a Peace Corps on the American lines is somehow an offence against the British tradition of voluntary service. We get a little bit too sentimental about our traditions of voluntary service. I hope that I will not be misunderstood—I am paying tribute to the volunteers, and the scheme which I am suggesting would require volunteers—but there comes a point at which the whole community must take a more positive rôle.
Just as in welfare services at home we had to move from relying entirely on

voluntary services to building the framework of the Welfare State, in which the voluntary service still has its part to play but with the State itself planning the strategy, equally in the scheme which I envisage the State must move in on a more positive scale.
The other possible objection by the Minister might be that what I am proposing would cost a lot more money. That argument, however, should not be advanced. By our vote at the United Nations for the Development Decade, we are committed to spend more money in any event. I do not believe that Britain or most of the other countries who voted for that resolution are fulfilling the obligations which they undertook in voting for it. Countries as rich as ours should be doing far more than we are doing in positive help for the developing countries in a number of different ways. To help upon these lines would produce more effective results than in other ways.
For that reason, I urge the Government seriously to consider the point of view which I have been putting forward.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Edward Gardner: May I join with other hon. Members in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) for his choice of subject in this Motion and for the way in which he has dealt with it? I think the House ought to be grateful that among its Members there are people who have deep and sincere interest in a voluntary organisation of this kind.
I listened with the most careful interest to the speech just made by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), and I aim bound to say that although there was some apparent and prima facie cogency in what he said, and he said it, if I may say so, with authority, because he has just returned from America, I am wholly opposed to what he suggested, namely, that this country should emulate the American Peace Corps. I shall give my reasons for that in a moment, but, first, I wish to follow what my hon. Friend the Member far Horncastle said about the origins of Voluntary Service Overseas.
I appreciate, of course, as everyone in the House must appreciate, that Voluntary Service Overseas is just one of a


number of organisations, and I hope it will not be thought that I am unduly emphasising the work of this organisation if I give more time to it than to other organisations. It so happens that my knowledge of Voluntary Service Overseas is greater than that of the other organisations.
I was reminded during the speech of my hon. Friend about what, I suppose, is not very widely known of the origins of Voluntary Service Overseas. As I understand it, the idea came from Singapore in the middle 1950s when there was formed there an organisation called the Singapore League of Youth. This organisation was formed to counter the Communist activities there among young people and to get the young people of all races working and living together. It had, I am proud to say, as its president a young Englishman, and I hope that I shall not be thought to be introducing into this debate any party political spirit if I say—a fact of which I am proud—that he was a Young Conservative.
The idea attracted the attention of an English journalist named Mr. George Edinger who reported on the possibilities of extending the idea. This report was read by Mr. Alec Dickson, one of the founders, who in 1956 was working on the Hungarian border, and two years later Mr. Dickson, with the help of others, founded the Service. As my hon. Friend reminded the House, this organisation has among its virtues the fact that its members live on the same level as the people whom they are serving and with whom they are working. They have no special houses, no special food and no special motor cars. This seems to me to be one of the secrets of the success of Voluntary Service Overseas.
Another reason—and this, if he will forgive me for saying so, appears to have been overlooked by the hon. Member for East Ham, North—for the success of Voluntary Service Overseas is the fact that its members have as their prime qualifications character, intelligence and, above all, youth. They are all in their teens. It seems to me to be an immeasurable advantage to have doing this work young people who can understand their fellows no matter to what race they belong or what may be the colour of their skins.
This is a feature of Voluntary Service Overseas, and it is something which is not matched by any other organisation in the world. It is certainly not matched, for all the advantages there may be in that organisation, by the American Peace Corps.

Mr. Prentice: The Peace Corps volunteers are aged 18 and over just as are the volunteers of V.S.O., although I think that a higher proportion of the members of the Peace Corps may be over 20 rather than below that age. As I say, they range from 18 upwards.

Mr. Gardner: I should be very cautious about attempting to correct the hon. Gentleman because, as we know, he has just returned from a visit to Washington and has studied this problem, but I think he will agree that if one compares the Peace Corps with, shall we say, Voluntary Service Overseas, some very obvious, striking, and dramatic differences are apparent. One of them, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is that the members of Voluntary Service Overseas have, as I have just attempted to explain, no special training. They must have character and they must have youth. The members of the American Peace Corps, on the other hand, have to have what I believe is technically described as M.A. graduate status.

Mr. Prentice: No.

Mr. Gardner: I stand corrected if that be so, but the majority of the members of the Peace Corps are people who have reached the standard of M.A. graduate status and who are in their twenties rather than in their 'teens.

Mr. Prentice: A lot of them are, but not all.

Mr. Gardner: This, of course, means that instead of going out as very young school-leavers or straight from the workshops and their apprenticships, they go out after training with the special qualifications. This gives them by itself an initial status. Our young people go out with nothing but their youth and their friendship and what they can offer. They build up, and succeed remarkably in building up, their own reputation. They run youth centres, they teach, they nurse.
In Vietnam and in Laos they took part in helping the wounded- and doing what they could to resolve the distresses of open warfare. In Siam, for example, there are four of our volunteers at the present time. The American Peace Corps has somewhere in the region of fifteen or twenty volunteers, yet the Siamese Government are asking for another twenty volunteers from this country, members of Voluntary Service Overseas. In British Guiana last year, in the jungle near the Kaiture Falls, I was speaking to some Amerindians and was surprised and delighted to hear the praise of these people for the members of Voluntary Service Overseas. This bears out exactly what Lord Mountbatten said about the effect which these young men and women have. We find the same thing in Nigeria and wherever else we go. In Central Africa, in Central Asia, South-East Asia, South America and the Pacific one hears praise for these young men and men from this country. I think that is a very wonderful thing.
I now come to the point made by the hon. Member for East Ham, North, namely, that we in this country ought to build up an organisation comparable to the American Peace Corps, a proposition with which, if I may say so, I profoundly disagree. Firstly, for the reason I have already given, namely, that most of the American volunteers are trained people, as against our untrained people; and I believe it is the young who can speak the language of the young; I believe it is the zest, the vitality, the enthusiasm of the young which can overcome the barriers of racial prejudice and misunderstanding. Secondly, the Americans, of course, give two years of service when they go overseas. Our young boys and girls give only one year. When the Americans go overseas to the under-developed countries the receiving country knows that all their expenses are paid for. It has no costs to underwrite. In the case of the Voluntary Service Overseas, as I say, our young men and girls are 18 and 19, and they go for only a year, and the expenses which they have to undertake are paid for by the receiving country. They get £1 a week and their food and clothes. But I see nothing very wrong, nothing very shameful, in this; in fact, I say it does good.
Not only America sends out these volunteers, but also Germany sends out technicians, the Swedes send out scientists, the Israelis send out instructors of one kind and another. Of course, if we are going to accept—what I certainly do not for one moment accept, but if we accept—that what these underdeveloped countries want are only people who are trained technicians, radiographers, harbour masters, managers, specialists in prestressed concrete, then the American organisation of the Peace Corps prevails: but if, on the other hand, as I profoundly believe, what the under-developed countries need is understanding, a new approach which only the young can give, then I believe that Voluntary Service Overseas and similar organisations which send cut young people win the argument.
The Peace Corps, when it sends out its representatives, is sending out representatives who represent the American Government, and that has a disadvantage, a gross disadvantage, and a practical disadvantage, because in many cases countries will not receive a representative who is regarded as being in a political context. For example, Mali will not have a member of the American Peace Corps. On the other hand, the volunteers from this country, the British volunteers, represent British youth, and they can go in where the Americans are stopped. They can go into Mali, for example, which will not receive the Americans and this is because it is understood that our people are not connected with the Government as such, but they come out as the representatives, as it were, of the people themselves.

Mr. Prentice: I cannot follow all the hon. and learned Gentleman's arguments, obviously, but will he take it from me that I am not arguing against V.O.S., I am not arguing that it ought to be abandoned, but arguing for its establishing a peace corps as well, just as the American voluntary organisations which preceded the Peace Corps still exist and still do valuable work?

Mr. Gardner: I am very grateful to the hon. Member. Let me make this clear, that I am not suggesting for a moment that he is arguing that we should abandon our voluntary service. I follow his argument all too well, I hope; but I am still against it.
I do not want this to be a Government agency. I want it to be continued as a voluntary effort. I am fully aware of the nature of the Peace Corps, and I have a great admiration, and, maybe, some envy, for some of its qualities and some of its opportunities. It is a Government agency. It is supported by massive fiancial and technical assistance. Its aim emotionally, if not expressly, is to expunge from Africa, from Asia, from other countries where it goes, the image of the ugly American, and to soften, and, as it were, to humanise, the impact of technical patronage. This is not the aim of Voluntary Service Overseas. It is to promote a new understanding and a new basis between the races—the different countries, and, eventually, all the people with whom it comes into contact.
They are a class of people in Voluntary Service Overseas who would resent, and strongly resent, any suggestion that they were "do-gooders" or that they were idealists. They will tell you, as they have told me on many occasions, that the reason they go out is because they have—thank goodness—a love of adventure. There have been many letters referred to in the House this afternoon, but the one which attracts me most is the letter which came from a young boy of 18 who had gone out to act as the headmaster of a school on a remote island. After he had been there a fortnight he wrote back to the headmaster of his old school and said
Dear Headmaster, As one headmaster to another"—
and the spirit of that letter showed that he was there enjoying the adventure; and was there also doing a tremendous amount of good.
I cannot help feeling that the impact of these young people has an influence more potent than all the propaganda we can buy, and I was delighted, as I am sure many other Members of the House were delighted, to see the encouragement in the Gracious Speech, the promise that these volunteers will receive encouragement from the Government, and I ask, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horn-castle has asked, the Government to make this encouragement practical. I would ask that this help should be in the form of providing transport in naval ships, by Royal Air Force aircraft, for

up to one thousand volunteers a year, taking them to the countries which are seeking their help. I believe that we can still continue to do this work on a voluntary basis, and I believe that the Government can enable this work to be carried out successfully on a voluntary basis; and furthermore I believe that only if it is carried out on a voluntary basis will it succeed in the way that we wish it to succeed.

5.37 p.m.

Mr. Dick Taverne: I want to start by raising one particular point. I very much agree with what was said by the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) that a knowledge of the background of the countries concerned does enable the people who go to work overseas to do it more successfully. In some of these countries it is people who are able to work with their hands who may be the more welcome, or people who have little more to offer than the goodwill to which the hon. and learned Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) referred; while in other places it may be people with specialist qualifications who may be needed.
However, what I want in particular to do this afternoon is to draw attention to some very valuable information gained by six Cambridge graduates who spent a year in Pakistan. I happened to find out about it because one of them is a constituent of mine who came to see me and to tell me about it. They are to publish a full report soon; as yet they have produced only a summary. I hope that when the full report comes out the right hon. Gentleman will look at it. I want to summarise, very briefly, the summary itself.
It says that the aim of the party was to investigate the possibilities of voluntary service in Pakistan. They did this by making a field study of village life in the Punjab. Six of them covered six different fields of study, including, for instance, agriculture, sociology, education, health. As a consequence of their work and study they came to certain conclusions, as the summary says.
In some of the places in Pakistan, particularly the smaller towns, work could usefully be done by voluntary organisations, whereas in the large cities some of them might be rather lost, and in some


of the rural districts they might sometimes come across a certain apathy. The kind of work which was most desired and most useful in these areas includes that in agriculture, nursing, teaching in high schools, and that of veterinary surgeons, which is very useful there, and, for women, in addition to the other qualifications which they may have, help with child welfare clinics and handicrafts, which are particularly valuable in the smaller communities. They found that in regard to qualifications, in India and Pakistan, only people with special skills were wanted, not necessarily people with degrees but people with some practical experience in their own field.
Again, another of their conclusions is that the time factor is important, and that the minimum period for a useful stay in Pakistan was a year or more. I think that arrangements should be made so that there is an overlap of a year and a half or two years in order to ensure more continuity. A further con-elusion to which they came was that organisation is essential, because people are not equally welcome in all places, or, if welcome, are not equally useful. For instance, they report:
In particular, young Pakistanis are eager to meet other young people, but their viewpoints are on very different planes. Student groups are notoriously difficult to work with, and most students are uninterested in voluntary work. This is a challenge which should be taken up by any volunteer at all times.
This is also something which applies to students all over the world. It was thought essential to have some sort of permanent representative or voluntary leader in any organisation of voluntary services for people going out to this kind of area. Lastly, one other conclusion was that, in regard to training, one week in Pakistan was worth more than one month in Britain. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take notice of their valuable experience and of some of the observations which they have made when their report comes out.
Secondly, I want to support very strongly indeed what my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said earlier when he suggested that there should be something in the nature of a Peace Corps. I see no reason whatever why a Peace Corps should not work side by side with the workers of these voluntary organisations. At the moment, it

is not just a question of altruism or of being an outlet for idealism on the part of young people. For instance, I should imagine that a great many of those who march to Aldermaston and who have the necessary qualifications might care to serve in something like a Peace Corps, and indeed might be rather more usefully employed in that sort of activity.
But the point I want to make is that this is not just a question of altruism, but a question of self-interest and of the effect it will have in this country, because we in this country are terribly insular. Perhaps in the days of empire we were less insular. But the empire has now gone, fortunately, despite what the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health was saying the other night. The empire has gone and there has been since an ever-increasing amount of insularity. It is not just a case of being able to help others, but also of our becoming aware of and understanding their problems. Every interest combines to urge an imaginative policy on the Government of the kind which the American Government has pioneered, which would not only give opportunity for an enormous amount of experience and enjoyment for young people, and would make a considerable contribution to the development of their countries, but would also be something which, at relatively low cost, would do a great deal to improve the relations between Britain and the countries concerned and widen our own horizons, which very much need widening.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. R. P. Hornby: There are very few points that have not already been made in this debate and which I wanted to make, so that I will keep my remarks brief.
I should, like others, like to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Horncastle (Sir. J. Maitland) for raising this subject, which is one that is attracting growing attention and growing enthusiasm. I will come in a few moments to the rate of growth of enthusiasm and interest in these schemes, because it affects the view we take about the Government's rôle in these services.
As others, and not least the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Taverne), have said, the value of these services is twofold—to those who give, as well as to


those who receive them—and I want to say a word or two about the value to those who give them. Of course, it is immensely valuable to a boy or girl of about 18 to be able to go out to some part of the world, which, very likely, he or she would never have the opportunity, for domestic reasons or for reasons of employment, to visit later in their lives, and that is immensely valuable. I believe that it is particularly valuable for precisely the reasons which the hon. Member has just given. We hear a lot about making Europe an outward-looking community, and I sometimes wonder, when I am talking to some people, how well qualified we are to do it. Of course, we have a noble history of contact with many parts of the world, but from time to time, many of us have been guilty of a good deal of arrogance in talking of—
Lesser breeds without the law
and same such phrases which ring through the pages of our history. We need to be a little bit mare humble about what we know or do not know about other lands, whose peoples we can help and whom we should like to help, but about whose problems we know singularly little and should want to know more.
I welcome these schemes for the effect which they might perhaps have on the character of our own people, and not less on the development of the countries to which they go. The services which we can bring to bear through educated, partly educated, trained and partly-trained people who go out under these schemes are just part of the benefits that we can give. The other part of the service is the sheer willingness of the people who want to go out to do this sort of work. In other words, these schemes are built up on their voluntary character. Secondly is the fact, as others have stated, that where they go they are specifically wanted and asked for.
When I heard that this debate was to take place, though I welcomed it, I had one anxiety, and that was that we, as politicians, might inject politics into it, and start talking about the value of schemes such as this to the Western world and so on. I believe, as others have said in this debate, that the real

value of these schemes, many of which we are discussing today, is their very personal, rather than their political, character, and it is in this context that I should like to say a word or two about what the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said about the Peace Corps and that type of organisation.
How much should we be doing in this field? I will give two answers to that question. First, as much as we can in order to fulfil the needs that are made known to us. In other words, we should try to fill the places that we are asked to fill, and that must be the first criterion. Secondly, I would say, as much as we can, while preserving our standards so far as the voluntary nature of the people who go out and the standards of selection, when we are talking about young people. It is important that there should be selection, and quite severe selective processes, through which those going out should go, and it should not be just a matter of trying to recruit the maximum number without any regard to standards.
My impression is that the numbers of pre-university students — the younger people, if I may so describe them—will grow very fast because this scheme is arousing enthusiasm and is being talked about extremely widely. I believe it is a scheme for which many more volunteers will appear. I believe that the rate of recruitment or willingness to be recruited will be assisted by the rapidly growing size of sixth forms in schools and the continuing dearth of university places. If there is a problem about getting a university place, or delay about it, I believe that many people will find that this is a means by which they can usefully fill a well-advertised need and at the same time add greatly to their experience.
I also believe that my right hon. Friend and his Department, the voluntary organisations, the Ministry of Education and others can greatly help in publicising these schemes by expressing their approval of and admiration for them and by telling the young people what is being done through them. I believe that the voluntary organisations and the returning volunteers are by far the best publicists of the schemes, together with the reports coming back from overseas territories, some of which we have heard about today. I would prefer to see the numbers


of younger people building up in this way rather than through any massive Government-sponsored campaign, which I feel would carry some of the taint of politics, and I should like to avoid that if possible.
In talking of volunteers for service overseas, we have discussed mainly the 18, 19 and 20 years old age group. I believe that one should equally consider as volunteers older trained people of many different ages and occupations who are willing to interrupt the normal course of their career in industry or one of the professions to meet a need in an overseas country and fill a vacancy where their skill and training can be of very great value. One thinks of such people as trained teachers, administrators, agricultural advisers, statisticians and so on, people who are scarce in countries where the educational build-up is in its early stages and on a narrow basis, countries where, in spite of our own shortages in those categories, we could contribute greatly as a result of our relative wealth compared with their needs.
In that sphere the Government have a considerable rôle to play, one in which my right hon. Friend has been very active, in sending out representatives to discuss with overseas countries what their manpower needs are. They have a rôle in trying to persuade Government Departments, local authorities, trade unions and others that there is an opportunity for service in such fields, and a rôle particularly in persuading employers, both private and local authority, that interruption of service should not be regarded as a handicap to the subsequent career of those who go out.
These are the main points that I wish to emphasise. First, while welcoming the most rapid possible build-up in the numbers of those going overseas, we should do nothing which would impair among the younger age groups the voluntary capacity in which they go. Secondly, with regard to the older and more specialised and trained people the Government Should do all they can to discuss with overseas countries what they want that we can help them by providing, and then at this end we should do all we can to smooth the passage of those who are willing to go.
Lastly, with regard to money, in their relationship with the voluntary organisa-

tions the Government should act as the clearing centre. They should try to ensure that as these services expand the ability of the voluntary organisations to handle them is not inhibited through lack of funds. In other ways they should prime the pump where necessary, but they should not—A take the point that others have made about a Peace Corps working side by side with voluntary services in certain fields—in any sense at all try to take over and run this work entirely on their own, because thereby they would detract from the voluntary capacity and the ideal of personal service which is at the back of the minds of those who wish to do the work and is the chief attraction of the scheme, particularly among the younger ones, in the countries receiving this help.

5.56 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Realising that others wish to speak, I will briefly focus attention on that part of the Motion which calls for the expansion and development of overseas services and argue three propositions.
The first proposition is that in India and Pakistan there is a very special need for secondary students of 16 to 18 years of age to become familiar with spoken—I emphasise "spoken"—English. The second is that many of our potential undergraduates, after they have finished their scholarship or entrance examinations to universities in December, would like to do something other than go back to school before they take their university place at the beginning of October the following year. The third is that many of our university faculties, with the exception, I must admit—it is an important exception—of the faculties of mathematics, would welcome people who have some varied and different experience from school, before they join the university in October.
As to the first proposition, the trouble is that in India and Pakistan at the moment those who go to university are not all familiar with spoken English. In a way it is for a reason that one welcomes, that many are the first representatives of their families having an opportunity to go to university. It is all very well for families such as the Nehru's, the Bhagwati's and others with generations of English speaking behind them to turn up at university and understand things,


but those who come as the first representatives of their families are faced with an entirely different situation. For them English is the only lingua franca; it is their only common language and the only exact language in which they have a chance to catch up with science and technology. In the light of this situation, would it not be sensible for three or four pupils forming a link between, say, Bristol Grammar School and a school in Lahore to go and mingle as pupils with the upper forms of the secondary schools in India and Pakistan?
The second proposition concerns the pupils themselves. Until a few years ago in our grammar schools and public schools, there was a very great temptation for pupils to go back for nine months after their university entrance examination in order to become a dignitary or grandee in the school and supposedly gain experience that way. Now, headmasters are agreed that many of their best pupils want to leave to find some other experience. This is particularly true among the girls. For that reason I welcome the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers). Undoubtedly there is the will among these young people to get out and gain some varied experience. It may be asked how one can expect these developing countries to take these youngsters who may be very immature. But perhaps their very immaturity and unself-consciousness would be of help. If they are unselfconscious it may be that they will be more able to co-operate with those they go to serve, in contrast with the Peace Corps which two hon. Members opposite have criticised.
The third proposition comes from the universities. The mathematicians insist that, because one year in university mathematics before the age of 25 is perhaps worth five years afterwards, they will not hear of their students breaking their studies. But the other faculties where there is a degree of judgment involved—economics, law, history and even physicists themselves—say, "Let us have those who have experiences other than mere school." Far be it from me to argue here that on this ground we should continue National Service, but one must listen to those university teachers who argue that pupils who have been in

National Service are better for it, particularly in subjects such as economics and law, which demand maturity of judgment.
In that respect, would it not be sensible to finance these youngsters so that they might go out to developing territories for a year or even just for nine months? This is particularly important in the case of East Africa, because there the term begins in January, and if the boys and girls were there from January to September they would serve during the most important terms of the year, while their presence in badly needed East African schools, or their absence from school there, would not matter all that much when it came to the third term of the year—October-December.
In the light of this, I want to put forward the concrete proposal that, in December, 1963, the right hon. Gentleman's Department having contacted the Pakistan and Indian High Commissions, and having circularised all schools serving children between 15 and 18, should get together some 800 pupils willing to spend nine months in secondary schools in India and Pakistan. It could send them out by ship, sailing perhaps on the 27th December in order to reach India and Pakistan in time for the school term at the beginning of 1964.
I suggest a ship not merely because of the "Dunera" and "Devonia", which are extremely suitable for the purpose, but also because, during the voyage, the British young people could receive acclimatisation courses and overcome the sort of difficulties mentioned by the hon. Lady the Member for Devonport.
But there is one objection to all this —finance. Since one cannot expect developing countries to pay for the unskilled services of 17 year-olds, cost must be borne by us, especially as the greatest benefit may be to British pupils. Let it suffice, however, if I say that those who sent me to Parliament are, I am sure, willing to foot the bill for their share. I do not think it is inappropriate to say that in each of my forty-four election meetings, and at the selection conference that chose me as candidate, one of the moist important points which I stressed was educational aid to under-developed countries. Therefore, I feel I am talking as a Member of this House who has a


mandate from his electors to utter these perhaps expensive but certainly worthwhile schemes.

6.5 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I begin by endorsing what my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) has said. I believe that it is true not only of his constituency that the electors would welcome an announcement—which, I hope, we shall have from the right hon. Gentleman—that the Government will not skimp the cost involved in the full development of the schemes discussed in the debate.
I want to urge on the Government, as did the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland), the necessity and duty of the Government to give every assistance —and I emphasise the word "every" so as to include financial assistance—to ensure the expansion and development of this work of voluntary overseas service. I do not believe that there is a shortage of manpower, both graduate and undergraduate, men and women, willing to go out and give their best if they feel they have a duty. I think that they have the training. I think that there is great demand for this work and that, in many respects, British education is geared to enabling people to devote a period of their lives to impart-Mg some of the wisdom of this country and some of the benefits of British education to overseas countries. There is an enormous demand for it overseas.
The manpower is available. What we want is financial backing and encouragement from the Government to enable the volunteers to be sent in sufficient numbers and thus give the fullest possible benefit to the overseas services. Ultimately, this is a question of finance. The hon. Member for Horncastle referred to Sir John Lockwood, who is a friend of mine and who is doing noble work in recruiting and promoting voluntary overseas service. I have discussed this matter with Sir John, who has told me that he is having to appeal for voluntary contributions from independent bodies. This is an uphill task these days. Why should he have to do it? The amount of money involved is not all that great and this is a task in which the Government should give much more assistance.
I was an enthusiastic supporter of the Act which set up the right hon. Gentleman's Department and I welcomed his appointment as Secretary of the Department. I believe him to be a man of vision. I believe that he is aware of the immense opportunities. I hope that he will not be slow in his efforts to persuade the Treasury to give him the necessary funds to enable the work to be done. He has a large Department and his opportunities are immense. There is no shortage of manpower, so I hope we shall hear from him that he will do what is necessary, as a Minister of the Crown, conscious of the opportunities, of his duty to humanity, of the special obligations of our country, with all its resources and educational facilities, its traditions and heritage, and of the momentous contribution to the life, culture and welfare of overseas countries which it can make.
This great task should not be stinted by lack of finance. It is not good enough for Sir John Lockwood to have to go cap in hand to various voluntary bodies asking for subscriptions. Naturally, they are subscribing according to their means, but we shall not reap the full benefit of this great work unless we get far more financial backing from the Government than has yet been assured to us. I hope, if nothing else emerges from this debate, that it will at any rate convince the country of the earnestness and worth-whileness of the task, of the immense opportunities, and of the fact that there are large numbers of boys and girls from our schools and universities anxious to go abroad and make their contributions.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: The House owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) for moving this Motion. He has initiated the first debate, but by no means the last of its kind, on what will become an increasingly important subject. I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) finished his speech as he did, because it is important to realise that what we are discussing is not simply an appeal for greater generosity from the Government to individual voluntary organisations, however worthy—and we all agree that they are—but a new kind


of approach to what in many ways is the greatest moral challenge of the times, a challenge to which my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) referred, the growing gap, despite all our efforts, between the richer and the poorer nations.
What we have been discussing is how to enlist the spirit of adventure of the people of this country, especially the young people, but many more than the young people, the spirit of idealism which is latent in these islands, to help in this battle to close this gap. We cannot have a peaceful world unless we close the gap, and we cannot have a decent world which will satisfy the conscience of any of us unless we make continual efforts towards this end.
Although the record of this country and even of the present Government will compare with that of other countries, we have no right to feel complacent about what we do. We now give about £180 million of public funds a year in this international war on want. That is about half the sum which we give in agricultural subsidies, and it is what we give as our contribution towards trying to raise the living standards of the two-thirds of the human race who live close to the poverty, and often close to the starvation, line.
We are a country with a great history of overseas responsibilities. One of the features of recent years, as the hon. Member for Horncastle said, has been the fact that those responsibilities have been running down quickly. One of the unfortunate features of that has been that the membership of our colonial services, including many dedicated and devoted people, has been reduced extremely quickly, with a good deal of unnecessary chaos in the process. Emerging countries, desperately needing special skills of various sorts, have been finding that on the whole we have been withdrawing more skill than we have been sending out. That is the background against which we have to consider the Motion.
Faced with this situation, there is a need for new techniques in bringing help from this country to the developing countries. Beyond doubt, one of the most exciting innovations in this respect has been the work of Voluntary Service

Overseas. Like other hon. Members, I have to declare an interest, because I am a member of its council and of its executive. Like other hon. Members, I should not like to miss this opportunity of paying tribute to the tremendous work and, indeed, the genius of Alec Dickson in bringing this organisation into being.
I have had the good fortune to see it operate in the field in various parts of the world. I remember one remarkable young man whom I saw among the Amerindians on the frontiers of British Guiana a year or two ago. He was exercising a responsibility and concern for that small aboriginal community which would not have been shared by the local democratically elected politicians, and he was doing a fine job. I thing, too, of a young woman graduate I saw in Nsukka University in Nigeria, the newest university when I was there last year, who was doing splendid work among the women students of the university. The work of V.S.O. has been generally very successful, but in talking in detail about its work, I pay equal tribute to the other organisations which are doing the same kind of job, such as I.V.S.P., the United Nations Association, the National Union of Students and others.
The hon. and learned Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) was quite right when he said that the main contribution of the 18-year-olds, who have been the distinctive group with which V.S.O. has dealt, has been to overcome barriers almost impossible for the adult official, however devoted, to surmount. I am sure that these young men and women have been an immensely exciting leaven in the communities to which they have gone. For one thing, they have set a very useful example to the small educated minority of their contemporaries in the countries to which they have gone and who have often had the feeling that, because education is such a privilege, an educated person degrades himself by engaging in manual work. In character and leadership training these young men have done immensely useful work.
A number of people have quoted comments about Voluntary Service Overseas and I should like to give one other quotation, although from a rather different point of view. It comes from one


of the volunteers who served in Northern Rhodesia a few years ago and who said:
My only regret is that Africa has given me so much much more than I have given Africa.
That remark is characteristic of these volunteers, but it is also illuminating, because it shows that in many ways the advantages of the work of V.S.O. come more to this country, which sends the volunteers, than to those countries which receive them, useful though their work there is. It gives these young men and women a sense of responsibility and the feeling that they can do different things. I am sure that in due course many of the V.S.O. people will take very fine positions in the national life of this country.
But what the emerging countries need more than anything else is not so much labour as skill, and we have to keep that in mind when we are dealing with this problem. It is here that the challenge of the American Peace Corps comes in. In many ways, the Peace Corps is the most dramatic of President Kennedy's "new frontier" policies. It was enacted by executive order in only March, 1961, and ye I recollect that in September, 1961, I had the privilege, with the hon. Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby), of helping to entertain a group of young Peace Corps teachers who was spending some weeks here on a London Institute of Education course preparing themselves to go to Makerere College for a two-year period of service in the schools of East Africa.
I recollect questioning the then Colonial Secretary, now the Leader of the House, about our part in this operation, because these American Peace Corps teachers were going to take part in an Anglo-American enterprise to supply teachers to East Africa. I recollect that when that began the American Peace Corps was contributing 160 teachers in the first year, while we in the United Kingdom were contributing only ten. When I raised it in the House, I was told that it was really unfair to make this kind of comparison because we had so many people in the field already, and that in many ways we were using everybody who was ready to volunteer. I did not believe it, and I am glad to relate that due to the work done by the Minister in his new Depart-

ment next year in this Anglo-American teachers for East Africa scheme we will roughly match the American contribution.
This shows that if we make the right sort of approach, if we make the right appeal to people in this country, we evoke the necessary response. I hope, therefore, that when the Minister concludes this debate he will not seek refuge by telling us that the Government cannot do any more to help the voluntary organisations, far less move ahead to do the kind of things which we on this side of the House are urging him to do today, because we are already doing so much in the normal and conventional ways of technical assistance and similar directions.
The lesson of the teachers for East Africa episode is that if the Government are prepared to give the drive and find the money there is undoubtedly the response from the British people. One has to remember that the American Peace Corps is over and above the conventional forms of technical assistance which the Americans run under the Point Four schemes, contributions to the United Nations, and other ways. We ought to look at this problem in the same way.
I think that the hon. and learned Member for Billericay was under a misapprehension on a number of points about the way in which the American Peace Corps operates. It is true that the largest number of volunteers comes from the 22 to 28 age group. It is also true that a large number of them are college graduates. This is partly because the United States succeeds in offering opportunities of university education to a larger proportion of young people than our Government have found themselves able to do. But even allowing for that, I am told that the age range of the Peace Corps volunteers runs from 18 at one end to about 67 at the other, so it covers a wide variety of people and meets the point made by the hon. Member for Tom-bridge. It includes not only university people but people from trade unions a ad farmers' organisations whose "know-how" is extremely useful in the emerging countries.

Mr. Gardner: Would the hon. Gentleman agree with the point that I attempted to make, namely, that the majority of


the members of the American Peace Corps are in their twenties? I know that there are extremes up to 67 and down to 18, but the majority are in their twenties.

Mr. Thomson: Yes. I confess that I could not follow the hon. and learned Gentleman when he seemed to suggest that at the age of 18, before a person went to college, he was full of zest and zeal and enthusiasm, but by the age of 22 when he emerged from college these qualities seem to have vanished.
What the Government have to face on this issue is the scale of the American Peace Carps compared with the scale of what we are doing in this country either through voluntary organisations or with the backing of Government finance. I understand that by June of next year the American Peace Corps, hardly more than two years old, will have 10,000 volunteers in the field. It has an annual budget 41 £10 million, and no doubt this will rise as the numbers increase.
What is our response to this? I am afraid that it is characteristic of our traditions of voluntary and charitable work, with all its many virtues but with its greater limitations when dealing with a problem of this magnitude. What the Minister has done so far is to set up a co-ordinating committee of the various voluntary organisations. I understand that he has made available to them a sum which might be of the order of £75,000, depending on what is matched by the voluntary organisations. This Committee has a target not of 10,000, or 5,000, or even 1,000, but a target by next year of only 250 graduates from all the voluntary organisations. When one looks at V.S.O. itself and the age group in which it has been most active, the 18year-olds, to which the hon. and learned Member for Billericay referred, one discovers that it has about 280 volunteers in the field and hopes by next year to have 350.
What help are the Government providing? I am told that last year they promised about £17,000, but, in fact, they gave about £15,000. This year, far from the sum being increased, it has gone down to about £13,000. When one considers that this is to help a voluntary

organisation which is doing such tremendously useful work, this sum is utterly disgraceful, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government are going to do very much better than that.
My main purpose in intervening in this debate, however, is to say—and I hope the House will not misunderstand me—that I think that there has been some danger of turning this debate, which in my view is a debate on a new national challenge which demands new national policies, into a Parliamentary edition of the Week's Good Cause". This problem is much bigger than that. There are no better causes than V.S.O., the United Nations Association, I.V.S.P., but the issues raised here are very much larger. I take issue with the hon. and learned Member for Billericay when he says that as a country we ought to concentrate entirely on the purely voluntary type of approach which is exemplified by V.S.O.
The hon. and learned Gentleman gave one bit of evidence, that in Siam where the volunteers had done as well as they always do, the Siamese wanted twenty instead of four next year. But they are not likely to get that figure on the financial policies adopted by the Minister with regard to V.S.O. In Malaya the difficulty being experienced by V.S.O. is that it may not be able to find accommodation for the few volunteers it is able to send because all the available accommodation will have been taken by the much larger number of Peace Corps workers who will be there by that time.
I do not see any contradiction in giving maximum encouragement to these voluntary bodies and at the same time trying to set a new and more imaginative national framework within which they will operate and which will provide the drive to raise our sights higher than has so far been the case. What is needed is an overall strategy in terms of sending people from this country to do useful jobs in the emerging countries overseas. It seems to me that there are probably four separate streams of people with whom we are dealing here.
First, there are the 18-year-olds, and I hope that the Government, or if not this Government perhaps a more imaginative one, will in due course take


up again a proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). Why should not we help the depressed areas by using surplus shipping to take 18-year-olds to the developing countries of the world where they can do a good job of work? This can be done if there is the necessary drive and idealism. A year or two ago a proposal was put forward that we ought to have in this country "Adventure Scholarships" provided by local authorities. These scholarships could be given to boys at the secondary modern schools who are sometimes left to feel that because they are not academically bright they are second-class citizens. Many of them have great qualities of leadership. Why not give them adventure scholarships to encourage them to go out and work for such bodies as V.S.O.?
All that we have had from the Government has been repeated obstruction. For example, a year or two ago the Southampton local authority wanted to give a scholarship to a boy to send him on a V.S.O. mission. We were told that this was against the law as it stood at this time because this was not considered an educational purpose within the meaning of the Statute. Let us try to do something about that.
The second very important group consists of the 22-years-olds—the people coming out of university, who have not settled themselves in their careers and have not married and had families. They are ready to carry out a period of service overseas. I commend the example of the Hampshire education authority in offering teacher places in Hampshire for young teachers who are willing first to serve abroad.
Thirdly, there is the group of people in mid-career. In this case we require a widespread system of secondment under which people will go from all sorts of professions and trades for a year or two on secondment to give service overseas. In this respect, I am thinking not only of teachers but of, for example, journalists. We have to commend Mr. Roy Thomson's imaginative proposal to set up a foundation in this field. It would be a tremendous thing if the Government set an example by showing that promotion inside Government Departments would be considerably helped by going

to Africa and spending a year or two in the planning departments of the new Governments out there. The same is true of the people in the town clerks' departments of local authorities. I should like to see big schemes of this nature going on in the years ahead.
Finally, there is room for some sort of full-time Commonwealth Service—a career service—quite small, perhaps 200 or 300 people at the outside, acting as the spearhead of the experts. That is the overall picture that I put before the House. I hope that we shall have a lead from the Government on this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North reminded the House that the Government were pledged to give the maximum support to the United Nations Development Decade. This is one way in which we could show that we mean business. We are a great nation, with a great imperial past. The real challenge which faces us is that of transforming this imperial past into new methods of exercising our sense of responsibility for people overseas. We shall not match the kind of history which this country has behind it simply by concentrating on a few worth-while voluntary organisations. We need a national scheme, a much more imaginative scheme and one on a much wider scale. I hope that we shall be given some sign tonight that the Minister is thinking on these lines.

6.32 p.m.

The Secretary for Technical Co-operation (Mr. Dennis Vosper): This has been a valuable debate. I join in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Horncastle (Sir J. Maitland) for initiating the debate—both because it enables me to hear the views of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on a subject of current interest at the appropriate time, and also because it gives me an opportunity to say a few words about a subject which was mentioned in the Gracious Speech.
The Government accept my hon. Friend's Motion. He and I have been associated in the past with efforts to provide for the needs of our young people, and I agree with everything said by him and by other hon. Members about the beneficial effects that the challenge of overseas service can make. Equally, there is no doubt that a period of voluntary service spent overseas by our young


people does give encouragement to the developing nations, quite apart from the material contribution that they make. Furthermore—and this point has not been made, although it is an important one—the 18-year-olds who go overseas when they are young, in my experience are more likely to offer their services when they are fully trained. They are more likely to come to my Department and others and offer their services to meet the challenge overseas.
This debate was no doubt inspired partly by our Voluntary Service Overseas and partly by the American Peace Corps, to which reference has also been made in the debate. Both organisations have been highly successful. I have been to many places in the field this year, and I have heard nothing but praise for both organisations. But it must be remembered that they are very different in their approach. Voluntary Service Overseas sponsors, almost entirely, school-leavers or those of an equivalent age. They are largely untrained and inexperienced, and they contribute not more than one year's service overseas. Her Majesty's Government contribute to this organistion — but I shall return to the question of finance later.
I have met many of these volunteers in the field and in this country, and I have been encouraged by what I have seen and heard from Ministers and Her Majesty's representatives in the field. I join in paying tribute to Mr. Alec Dickson, who inspired so much of this and other movements. Voluntary Service Overseas is also fortunate in having had as its last chairman an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as its present chairman an ex-Colonial Secretary. Many hon. Members have played a part in this movement. It may be of interest to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) to know that no one has played a greater part in the past year than the Headmaster of Eton. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) clearly described the aims and objectives of Voluntary Service Overseas—which are very different from those of the Peace Corps—and I do not need to repeat them.
I have never met anyone below the age of 21 in the Peace Corps, but I

accept the word of the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) that there are some. It is the pride of the Peace Corps that the people it sends are trained and experienced. Not only do many of them have university degrees but a large proportion has actual experience in the field, as doctors in hospitals, nurses, teachers and so on. That is the great difference. The Peace Corps is trained. Its members also have experience of the language of the country to which they go.
Except that both organisations give their services voluntarily, the two cannot really be compared. Like the hon. Member for East Haan, North, I was at the Peace Corps headquarters only 10 days ago, and in October I attended a three-day conference sponsored by the Corps, which I found most stimulating, if exhausting. I agree that the Corps has proved itself, and in the United States one now finds few, if any, critics, whereas there were many only a year ago.
We agree that we need to engage in the task of helping to supply the manpower needs of developing countries, but before we decide how far we should emulate the Peace Corps we should first examine the needs of the developing countries and also the contribution that this country has been accustomed to make. By reason of history alone our contribution is very different from that of the United States. The hon. Member for East Ham, North referred to the total effort in this field, and it is in this context that I want to discuss the matter.
My concern, as Secretary for Technical Co-operation, is' with the needs of developing countries to whom we provide technical assistance, which may be defined as the provision of training, experts and equipment. That part of technical assistance which is relevant to this debate is our contribution to the manpower needs of the developing countries, and there are three ways in which Britain helps. Our approach in each case is to seek to meet the requests of the developing country, and not to impose upon it what we think it should have.
The first of the three methods is by the direct supply of trained men and women—and I emphasise the word "trained"—from Britain, both to undertake skilled tasks and to train others in


those skills. During the five years from 1957 to 1961 over 5.000 men and women were recruited for Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service, which has endeavoured to meet this need. They include teachers, administrators, doctors, nurses, agriculturists, engineers and veterinarians, among many other types of skilled persons, all of whom when recruited enter the service of the Government whom they now serve.
In addition, it has been possible to assist certain Commonwealth countries to afford the services of the trained and experienced men and women whom they require to help carry on the essential services of government until they can train their own local staff. Under this Overseas Service Aid Scheme the costs are shared between the overseas Government and ourselves, and at the beginning of this year no fewer than 16,000 officers were working under the scheme. This has been and remains our principal contribution. The United States has no comparable effort—again, by reason of history. But I agree that with the rapidly changing Commonwealth it is a diminishing form of service.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), who has apologised for having to leave the debate, raised the question of professional service, as did the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson). I can only refer to the White Paper, which my Department published earlier this year, explaining the difficulties; that with the changing demands of the developing countries professional service —although this possibly does not apply to the scheme that he had in mind—is not a possibility. I think that we must meet the needs as we find them from day to day.
This running down of the permanent service means a major change, in that it is no longer possible to offer a permanent and pensionable career overseas for many splendid young men and women who have chosen to devote their lives to this service. This change—I think this is not always understood—is inevitable, because we cannot offer a permanent career overseas with promotion prospects, and also because technical and constitutional advance means a constant change in the type of person required. The requests from,

say, Nigeria this year may be totally different from those received last year, and, therefore, again one must meet the requests according to the state of development of the country concerned.
We therefore face a change from permanent service overseas to short-term service of various kinds by people who normally work and live in this country. This change from permanent to short-term service was explained in the White Paper which we published earlier this year. We are thus then moving to a new type of overseas service which requires the co-operation of organisations and employers throughout the country, who are asked to release their employees for a period of overseas service, with some assurance of re-entry on their return.
This is the second method of meeting the manpower needs of developing countries—the short-term service or secondment, or other forms of relief from service based in this country. For this short-term service, and for the same period-1957–61—about 6,500 personnel have been recruited in this country, teachers predominating, followed, I should think, by the medical profession. None of this service is voluntary in that those concerned are engaged on normal terms, but, of course, to uproot oneself from an established post in this country requires something of the spirit of adventure and a desire to work with others less fortunately placed.
These, then, are the two principal ways in which this country contributes to the manpower needs of developing countries, and, at the present time, there are about 20,000 people serving overseas in one or other of these capacities. The hon. Member for Dundee, East asked me not to take refuge in what we are doing in this particular way, and I do not wish to do that, but the country is making very considerable effort, and it must go on record as being our main approach even at this time.
All these are trained people, and they have gone overseas as trained people to fill a definite post required by the overseas country. It is my experience from visiting many of these countries that the first requirement of the overseas country is for the trained man and woman. The hon. Member for East Ham, North said that he saw some Peace Corps volunteers


trained for Nigeria. They are very welcome, but I think that if he went to Nigeria the Nigerians would tell him that they would sooner have a trained, experienced teacher or doctor. The trained man is the one requested by many of the developing countries which I have visited.
The hon. Member challenged me about the arguments against the Peace Corps. I think the answer is simply this, that our main effort is to provide trained people to fill definite posts, and that voluntary service must be supplementary to this particular effort, at any rate at the present time. I have no doubt that the Peace Corps is right for the United States, but I think that at the present time the Peace Corps would not be right for this country.

Mr. Prentice: The United States in the A.I.D. scheme is sending a lot of trained people in addition to the Peace Corps effort. It is not a question of one or the other, they are doing both. We suggest that this country should do both.

Mr. Vosper: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made that point, because I was at the A.I.D. the week before last and I think that the Peace Corps is rapidly going to overwhelm and overtake other efforts. Possibly in a year or two we may find that the Peace Corps is filling most if not all of the overseas vacancies filled by the A.I.D., except in the highly advanced and skilled fields.
I come to the main topic of the debate, the volunteer. Against this background, with its rapid change from permanent service to short-time service, hitherto the provision of volunteers has been a small and supplementary part of the whole operation to meet overseas needs —just how small the hon. Member for Dundee, East stated quite clearly. But I expect that with the change in the nature of the service, the run-down of the permanent service, and the building up of the short service together with the obvious gaps which anyone can see in the developing countries in the manpower field, volunteers can and should play an increasing part.
I have referred to the excellent work of Voluntary Service Overseas, which, of course, was in the field even before the Peace Corps, but other voluntary organi-

sations have also played their part. I have in mind the United Nations Association, International Voluntary Service, the National Union of Students and there are others. The National Council of Social Service has recently been cooperating with my Department to promote social service work overseas, particularly in the direction mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Devon-port (Miss Vickers).
Earlier this year, following the creation of my Department, and this rapid change in the nature of service, I felt the need to promote further activity in the field of voluntary service and several meetings of the interested parties and organisations were held under my auspices. These resulted in the setting up of the Lockwood Committee, under the Chairmanship of Sir John Lockwood, and comprising representatives of the interested organisations, together with representatives from my own and other Departments.
Their objective was twofold. The first aim, as has been said in more than one speech, was to co-ordinate the activities of the organisations at present in the field, and I submit that this was necessary. The second—and I think that this has not been made fully—was to fill the gap and provide for graduate volunteers to go overseas. The rôle of the Lockwood Committee is not only to co-ordinate but to supplement and expand. This provision of graduates seems to me to be most important, because as I have tried to explain to the House the need of the overseas countries is for trained people, and the nearer one can get to that stage with a volunteer, and this is the great success of the Peace Corps, so much the better. Quite obviously, the graduate comes nearer to that idea than the school leaver.

Mr. William Baxter: Has the Minister considered the possibility of bringing people to this country for training, rather than sending so many people from here to train Africans? I had occasion to entertain a few Africans at the request of the Home Department, and I was greatly impressed by the fact that they were of the opinion that it would be very much better if the trade union movement, the local authority movement, the Federation of British Industries, and so forth, tried


bo encourage Africans to come into the movement far a period of training here and then go back to work in their own country.

Mr. Vosper: I fully agree. Reference has been made to two-way traffic. There are about 60,000 students from overseas in this country at the present time, and most of them are from developing countries. I appreciate the point which the hon. Member makes, but I think that we must stick to the theme of providing for the overseas manpower needs which have to be met from developed countries until their own people are fully trained.
In forming the Lockwood Committee, we looked first to a co-ordination of the existing activities. The hon. Member said there was no clearing house. In fact, the Lockwood Committee, or its secretariat, provides just that clearing house. At the time when I wrote the letter to the hon. Member the Committee did not exist. The second thing is the filling of the "graduate gap", which is comparable to the Peace Corps; and eventually, I hope, that the formation of the Lockwood Committee will lead to an overall expansion of the voluntary element of overseas service.
Most of the volunteers, be they Peace Corps, graduates or Voluntary Service Overseas are in the teaching sphere. That is where the gap remains. I was attracted by the speech of the hon. Member for West Lothian. We hope that many volunteers will take up teaching English as it is spoken. I noted the attractive and imaginative proposal of the hon. Member. But, having regard to the needs of the developing countries, I feel that it would have a comparatively low priority, particularly with regard to India and Pakistan where the needs and pressures on my Department are very great.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the Minister aware of how crucial is the language problem? Dr. George Salt, a Fellow of the Royal Society and an entymologist, went out to Pakistan universities to lecture on insects with special reference to pest control in Pakistan. What did he find? The undergraduates did not understand the spoken word and therefore reaped little benefit from his lectures. Whether language as such is a priority is debatable. But is not it certain that, without an understanding of language, scientific ad-

vance in under-developed countries will be frustrated? Would not the Minister agree that this is where familiarity with spoken English assumes such importance?

Mr. Vosper: I agree. In fact, we are doing this. I merely issued the warning that such an expensive and imaginative proposal would be unacceptable to my Department in view of the other needs of the Indian sub-continent.
The purpose of the voluntary bodies has been well covered in the speeches which have been made. The House has been told that this year Voluntary Service Overseas has sent 286 volunteers abroad, and I am in full support of its wish and intention to increase this number next year. I will come back to the question of finance in a moment.
On the graduate side, for the first time this year, in co-operation with Voluntary Service Overseas, we have sent 36 graduate volunteers to Africa; and the Lockwood Committee proposes that next year this figure should be increased to 250. These graduate volunteers, the new element in all this, will go overseas for one year. They will be paid a salary, or be given pocket money, with board and lodging, by the receiving organisation. In addition, fares will be paid and volunteers will receive various allowances, including an outfit allowance and a modest terminal grant of £150. These latter expenses will be paid for from United Kingdom public and private funds, and Her Majesty's Government have undertaken to provide half of these funds.
The response from the universities—this is in recent weeks—is, I think, encouraging Nearly 500 applications have been received from graduates, or from people who are graduating at the moment, and applications are coming in at the rate of six a day The relevant Committee has started to interview applicants and I shall be pleased to supply any hon. Member who is interested with a copy of the leaflet sent to universities in this connection. My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport raised the question of publicity for this movement. In these matters which are my responsibility I do not think that we have been at fault. But I cannot speak for the efforts of Voluntary Service Overseas.
It is difficult to make forecasts about numbers, but I anticipate that by this time next year there will be upwards of 650 volunteers of all kinds serving overseas in developing countries. This would be at least more than double the number now serving. My hon. Friend and Member for Devonport asked about training. I find that a most difficult subject because the more time spent in training, the less time there is for the volunteer to serve overseas. Graduates in a pilot scheme in West Africa had one week's training, mainly an orientation course with a certain amount of education about teaching in schools. It would be my idea that the 250 to come next year would receive that amount of training and no more. But I am always open to reconsider this aspect.
I come now to what has been one of the main issues of the debate, the question of financing these operations. This is a voluntary service both by the nature of the service of the volunteers and by the manner in which it is organised and financed. I hope that it will always remain so, and I hope also that that is the majority view of the House. This seems an excellent opportunity to draw public attention to the existence of this service and to the fact that it provides an admirable opportunity for the many who have traditionally supported and financed voluntary service in all its forms in this country. Some industries and individuals have given their support and it is one of the main tasks of the Lockwood Committee to explore new sources of voluntary finance.
The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) complained that Sir John Lockwood had to go and find money. He has been guaranteed half the money he needs from Government funds, and I do not think that that is too bad a beginning for a voluntary effort. For some years the Government have made a small contribution to the funds of Voluntary Service Overseas. This year I calculate that Government funds have provided probably about a quarter of the funds of Voluntary Service Overseas. I am well aware of the needs for the coming year. I cannot at this point announce what sum will be the contribution for next year. But I have said that I am anxious to see an increase in the total numbers for next year,

and it must follow that the grant to Voluntary Service Overseas will at least be increased. But I cannot say by what amount.
This year, for the first time, Her Majesty's Government have made a financial contribution to the funds of other organisations, the United Nations Association and so on. Regarding graduates, I have already said that the Government are committed to meeting half of their costs next year and this commitment alone might work out at about £100,000. I think it may be said, in answer to the inquiries which have ben made, that the contribution from public funds has increased, is increasing and is more than likely to increase again considerably next year. The hon. Member for Islington, East asked me not to be skimpy in this matter, and I can assure him that the Government intend to increase their contribution to all forms of voluntary service very considerably.
My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-castle asked for equality of treatment. That is to say, that the Government should contribute £ to £ for Voluntary Service Overseas in the same way as for the graduate scheme. Here the difficulty is that this has been an organisation financed initially and successfully almost entirely from voluntary funds, whereas the graduate scheme was initiated and sponsored by the Government. It was a priming operation. This year the Government paid the whole amount. For next year it is our proposal to provide half the money for the graduates. I too look to the day when the two schemes will be treated equally by the Government. But until the graduate scheme is fully afloat, it will be necessary for the Government to provide a bigger subvention for that scheme than for the school leavers. I hope that eventually there will be equality.
There remains the question as to what extent this should be a Government enterprise. Should it be a Peace Corps or left as a voluntary organisation? As our voluntary effort is supplementary to the main effort overseas, it seems that this is an enterprise well handled by the voluntary bodies which have an excellent tradition in our country and a good record in this field. I hope the House will agree with me that the rôle of the Government should be to co-ordinate these bodies


without sapping their initiative, but at the same time providing them with encouragement and finance and otherwise fill the gaps in the programme and expand their operations. That has been our intention during the last few months and I welcome this debate, which has come at a time when we must take decisions for the future. I shall pay particular regard to all the suggestions which have been made.
I do not think that we have any reason to be ashamed of our efforts overseas to meet manpower needs. I am sure that the new rôle of short-term service overseas, coupled with voluntary service, will commend itself as much to our young men and women as did the permanent service which is now coming to an end. The thing that matters is that there should be a willingness to serve and a desire to help the developing nations. To this we must add the undoubted benefit which young people, particularly, derive from mixing and working with people overseas and the experience and ideas which they spread around when they return to this country.
This debate has been helpful to me and comes at a vital time in the making of plans for the future. I hope the knowledge that these opportunities exist for graduates as well as school leavers will come to the notice of all concerned, with the fact that this House wishes them well.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House, having regard to the excellent work of the organisations concerned with sending volunteers overseas to help in underdeveloped countries, urges Her Majesty's Government to give every assistance to ensure the expansion and development of this work.

Orders of the Day — COUNTY COURTES (JURTSDICTION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.0 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The apparently rather and provisions of this Bill do not conceal any controversial questions of policy because its provisions are merely consequential upon other Measures already approved by the House. Its object, quite simply, is to restore to county courts their jurisdiction in cases relating to land conferred upon them by the County Courts Act, 1955, which has been indirectly reduced to a very marked degree by the reassessment of rateable values.
As I shall explain to the House, the revaluation which took place in 1956 and the increase of rateable values which resulted, took away from county courts almost one-half of the jurisdiction conferred upon them in the previous year. As the House will appreciate, the revaluation now taking place will certainly make further inroads into what remains. As hon. Members know, the county court is a local and easily accessible court which involves litigants in lesser expense and often lesser inconvenience and travelling attendance, while this drastic change will impose considerable hardship upon those litigants who are compelled to go to the High Court and thereby compelled to ensure high costs. As this result is largely indirect, we feel it right in this Bill to extend county court jurisdiction and to restore the position to what it was in 1955.
With those words of preface to the Bill generally, I turn to its provisions and the reasons for them. I can best do this by explaining the basis of subsection (1) of Clause 1, which deals with actions in the recovery of land and actions in which the title to land is called in question as well as some proceedings for relief against the lessor. The history of the matter is that, under Section 48 of the County Courts Act, 1934, the county courts had jurisdiction to entertain any action for the recovery


of land where neither the value nor the rent of the premises exceeded £100 a year. The County Courts Act, 1955, provided that the amount by reference to which the jurisdiction of the county court was limited should be £100 in net annual value for rating instead of £100 yearly value or rent.
As hon. Members will know, the net annual value is the rent at which property might be expected to be let if the tenant were responsible for all the outgoings, the insurance, repairs and maintenance. This was a substantial increase in 1955 since, according to the Evershed Committee on whose recommendations most of the 1955 Act was based, a yearly value of £100 was roughly equivalent to a net annual value of £60. The County Courts Act, 1959, consolidated these previous enactments relating to county courts. Section 48 of the 1959 Act reenacted Section 48 of the 1934 Act, as amended in 1955, by providing that the county courts should have jurisdiction to entertain any action for recovery of land where the net annual value for rating of the land in question does not exceed £100.
However, the increase in rateable values which took place in 1956 has consequentially had the effect of removing from county court jurisdiction a large number of premises Which the 1955 Act had brought within it. The average increase in net annual values of all types of property was 81 per cent. So the county court jurisdiction has been reduced almost by one-half of what was intended by Parliament in the 1955 Act. The further increase in rateable values which will take place when the new valuation lists come into force on 1st April, 1963, will cause an even greater reduction in the jurisdiction of the county court.
It is estimated that the average increase over existing net annual values will be 125 per cent., making a total increase of 308 per cent. since 1955. So unless the limit of £100 which was mentioned in Section 48 of the 1959 Act is raised to the same extent, the county court will lose jurisdiction over a vast number of premises which were formerly within it. This surely is something we should wish to avoid.
Subsection (1) accordingly provides that Section 48 shall be amended by raising the limit of the county court jurisdiction in actions for the recovery of land from £100 to £400 in the net annual value for rating. The other subsection to the Clause and the other Clauses of the Bill make corresponding provisions relating to other enactments which have been affected in the same way.
I shall refer shortly to the other Clauses and their effect. Clause 2 deals with the right of appeal from a county court on questions of fact, a right which is conferred in certain actions relating to land. Since it is estimated that the net annual values will be four times larger in 1963 than they were in 1955 when the figure of £60 was fixed, a figure of £240 might have been substituted, but, as hon. Members will see, the figure in the Clause is £200. When fixing a figure upon Which depends a right of appeal, a lower figure and a round figure, I suggest, is clearly preferable, so it has been fixed at £200 and not as might have been as a matter of mere mathematics at £240.
Clause 3 concerns property where the value in question is not separately rated. By Section 200 (2) of the 1959 Act, such property is taken to have a net annual value for rating equal to three-fifths of its value by the year. This was provided because in 1955 a net annual value for rating of £60 was regarded as roughly equivalent to a letting value of £100, which was the estimate of the Evershed Committee. Rateable values at that time were still based on 1934 rental values and next year, 1963, they will be based on current rateable values. Therefore property not separately rated should be taken to have its full value by the year.
Subsection (2) of Clause 3 removes the anomaly whereby a position could arise where a county court has jurisdiction in respect of the whole of the hereditament but not in respect of an unrated part. This could occur where property having no separate rateable value forms part of a rated hereditament. If a part is let at a high rent because it is furnished or because services are provided, the value by the year might be greater than the whole hereditament.
Clause 4 increases the jurisdiction of the county court to take into account increases in rateable value in cases under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act,


1954, and also other Acts set out in the Clause. They deal with the grant of new leases. The figure in 1954 and in those other Acts was £500 and, applying the same considerations to which I have been referring earlier and to maintain the jurisdiction of the county courts, this figure is increased from £500 to £2,000.
The only other matter to which I think I should draw the attention of the House is the extent to which it is necessary and, indeed, possible to take into account the effect of the revaluation which is now in progress and which comes into effect next year. In this connection I would refer to paragraph 4 of the White Paper on the Revaluation for Rates in 1963. That paragraph states:
It is estimated that the average increase in the gross values of houses between 1939 and 1963 as a result of the 1956 and 1963 general revaluations alone will bring them to about four times the 1939 figure.
That is why in this Bill and in my speech that figure has been taken as being a sufficiently accurate estimate for the purposes of this Bill.
There are two points which I might usefully mention in conclusion. One is that the current revaluation will not affect the application of the Rent Acts to any property anywhere, and the second is that the Bill does not and will not cut down the jurisdiction of the High Court, because the jurisdiction of the county court is now, as it always has been, a concurrent jurisdiction and the plaintiff, therefore, if he prefers, can bring his proceedings in the High Court.
I hope that with that explanation the House will welcome this Bill as a sensible Measure conferring benefits upon litigants.

7.12 p.m.

Sir Frank Soskice: This Bill, in a sense, must be regarded as a minor nightmare for a Law Officer. It is arid. It is introduced against a very melancholy background, namely, the estimate as to the effect of net annual values at the 1956 and 1963 revaluations, It is extremely complex. It covers a long list of quite separate and isolated points which arise as a result of the effect of that revaluation.
A Bill like that is extraordinarily difficult to explain. That is why I think we should all be extremely grateful to the

Solicitor-General for having made it—speaking for myself, and I think I am speaking for other hon. Members—. pellucidly plain in his introduction of the Bill. He was, I thought, a trifle optimistic when he said that he hoped the House would welcome this Bill, because the word "welcome", generally understood, implies a degree of spontaneous expression of joy. I should have thought it would be more appropriate to say, whilst I do not in the least complain of the gladsome note in the phrase which he used, that the House is perfectly ready to realise that this is a necessary Bill because it preserves the existing jurisdiction of the county courts.
I should have thought that we would unanimously wish to express our commendation of the very great service rendered by our county court judges. When we studied this Bill I suppose we all looked carefully at its provisions to see whether any of them imposed an additional burden upon the very heavy burdon already resting upon the shoulders of county court judges. Had it done so, I feel that the House would have desired to discuss more carefully the basic principles upon which the Bill is framed. The Solicitor-General has, by his clear account of the Bill, made it easily acceptable that the Bill in no sense increases the load on the county court judges at the moment.
The Bill, as a necessary corollary of the effect of revaluations, simply preserves the existing scope of the jurisdiction which county courts exercise in actions touching questions affecting land. After all, they provide for the ordinary citizen in his own district a ready and inexpensive means of obtaining justice. Actions which go to the High Court, in spite of all the efforts that have been made, must of necessity remain more or less expensive, and they are proceedings which strike some degree of fear into the bosoms of most citizens.
Therefore, I should have thought it was certainly in the public interest that although, considering the work at present done by the county court judges, we should be jealous and anxious not unduly to increase it, it should nevertheless continue to be performed by them as they at present perform it. The Solicitor-General has explained that it is precisely that which the Bill achieves.
The Bill has a number of Clauses and, as I have said, covers a wide variety of different points arising in relation to different enactments which concern the administration of justice in matters touching land. I do not feel that I can usefully comment on any of the points with which the Solicitor-General has dealt. On matters of drafting, perhaps when we come to look at the Bill rather more closely in Committee we may wish to raise questions.
In particular, if the Solicitor-General will look at Clause 4 he will see there that the expression used is "rateable value" simpliciter, whereas in all the other Clauses the expression used is "net annual value". Probably the explanation is that somewhere in the Acts referred to the words "rateable value" are defined, and they are probably defined somewhere as being equivalent in the terms of those Acts to net annual value. In fact, I believe there is such a Section in one of the Acts—I cannot remember which it is—which provides such a definition. That is probably the reason, and if the Solicitor-General would kindly enlighten us that would probably obviate the necessity for some discussion in Committee. Perhaps, in any case, he will be so kind as to look at it in case there has been an oversight in the drafting, although I am sure there has not been.
I do not think I can usefully add anything to what has already been said. No doubt, we shall look more closely at the individual subsections at a later stage. We are now discussing the general principle of the Bill. For the reasons that have been given by the Solicitor-General in his very lucid speech, I feel that we should all say that this Bill is necessary and that we should congratulate him on bringing it forward and hope that it has a speedy passage to the Statute Book.

7.18 p.m.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: Whether Or not we should so far forget ourselves as to welcome this Bill, I think we can all agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice) that it is a necessary Bill, and congratulate the Solicitor-General on the lucid manner in which he presented it.
A little while ago some of us might have had some doubts, and even hesitation, about restoring, as this Bill does, the jurisdiction of the county court to what it was before, because a few years ago there was a considerable evil in the administration of justice in the county courts in the way of delays. There were many complaints about that; many actions were being held up and adjourned, with long delays in the adjournments.
As I understand it, there has been a tremendous improvement in that respect in the last year or two, and I should Like to take this opportunity of expressing appreciation for all that has been done in the last year or two, including the appointment of many additional deputy county court judges in order to speed up and improve the work of the courts. Generally speaking, there is, I believe, considerable satisfaction in the profession now at the way the courts are working.
I take this opportunity, however, of raising what is, perhaps, a relatively minor mischief which occurs in county court practice as compared with High Court practice. It is something which could arise under the Bill, not in connection with claims for the recovery of land, but where there is a money claim involving a question as to the title to a hereditament.
There is a provision in the county court rules that, if a defendant pays into court the amount claimed, or what he thinks is the right amount, within eight days of the service of the summons upon him, and the plaintiff takes out that payment into court in satisfaction of his claim, the plaintiff is then, in the normal course, entitled to only what are called his fixed costs. These fixed costs are certain costs laid down in an appendix to the rule and which the plaintiff has to claim on the face of the summons.
Those familiar with this branch of practice will know that the fixed costs are far less than the ordinary costs incurred by a solicitor acting for a plaintiff to which he would be entitled, and which he would recover in the ordinary way from a defendant on the taxation of costs. I will illustrate the point by some hypothetical figures.
In an ordinary action for damages for personal injury brought in the county


court a solicitor is acting for the plaintiff. Before the time comes for the issue of his plaint, the solicitor will, more often than not, quite properly incur fairly substantial costs. He has many investigations to carry out. He has witnesses to interview, and the witnesses may have dispersed or gone to other employment in various parts of the country. He will conduct negotiations arising out of the accident. There may be proceedings in the magistrates' court, for example, which he will have to attend. He will obtain reports from doctors about the injuries received by the plaintiff. In quite a small matter, the costs can easily mount up in this way to as much as 20, 30 or even 40 guineas. In such a case, the fixed costs, so called, would not, I am advised, be mare than about 8 guineas.
The vast majority of claims of this kind never come to court. They are negotiated between the solicitor acting for the plaintiff and, usually, an insurance company acting for the defendant. It is the common practice that, when a settlement is reached, the basis of the settlement is that the defendant will pay not only the agreed amount of damages but the plaintiff's solicitor's costs, or, if the parties cannot agree, such costs as will be awarded on a taxation.
The mischief of the rule is this. Where a settlement is not reached and the solicitor, therefore, has to issue a summons, the defendant derives an advantage by disposing of the action by means of a payment into court. This payment into court may be payment of the full amount claimed, and the advantage the defendant gets is that he then has to pay, in the ordinary case, only the very limited fixed costs.
The rule was quite rigid until a few years ago. In 1959, it was changed to give a discretion to the court so that a plaintiff receives only his fixed costs unless the court otherwise orders. However, the Court of Appeal, considering this rule, laid down in 1960 that the meaning of the rule is that only in exceptional circumstances should anything more than the fixed costs be ordered. I am told—I have not seen the report myself—that there was a case only two or three weeks ago in which the Court of Appeal put an even more rigid interpretation on the rule than before.
The explanation of the rule as put by the Court of Appeal in the first case to which I referred, Hopkins v. Manners, reads almost ironically in view of what has been happening in practice. It was said by Lord Justice Pearce that
The object of the rule was to promote a speedy settlement of just claims".
I am advised that what is happening in practice is exactly the opposite in some cases. Some unscrupulous defendants—I regret to say that some insurance companies are included—are deliberately adopting the practice of not settling claims by negotiation in order to restrict their liability for costs. They find out during the negotiations what the amount is which the plaintiff will be prepared to accept. They will not offer that amount. They will not conclude the negotiations, and they leave the plaintiff to issue a summons. So soon as the summons is issued, the amount claimed, or the amount which the defendant thinks that the plaintiff is claiming, is promptly paid into court, that amount being far more than has ever been offered before.
In this way, a defendant is limited to having to pay the fixed costs unless the plaintiff, on taking out the summons, can persuade the registrar or county court judge that it would be proper to order further costs. However, in view of the ruling of the Court of Appeal it is exceedingly difficult for a plaintiff to satisfy the court that anything exceptional in the way of costs has been incurred so as to entitle him to more, and, moreover, he runs the risk of having to incur still further abortive costs in taking cut the summons itself.
In seeking to explain the rule further, Lord Justice Pearce in the same judgment said:
It is hard that a plaintiff who has incurred costs should not receive them in full; but it is also hard that a defendant who has paid a sum into court with a general expectation of limiting his liability to the amount of costs indorsed on the summons should find it increased after the acceptance of his payment in.
If that be a hardship to the defendant, it is a hardship which arises only as a consequence of the provisions of the rule. If the rule were abolished or altered, there would be, so far as I can see, no hardship to the defendant at all. It is a normal consequence of having to settle any claim that the defendant has to pay the reasonable


costs incurred by the plaintiff, and this rule, of course, is embodied in all other provisions for payment into court both in the High Court and in the county court. If the defendant does not pay in within the eight days, the normal rule applies and, if the plaintiff accepts the money, he is entitled to costs properly incurred up to the date of payment in.
This mischief does not arise directly, but it can arise indirectly under the Bill. I urge the Solicitor-General and the Law Officers to look at the matter. If their inquiries show that there is this mischief, as I suggest, it would, perhaps, be a matter which could be referred with a recommendation to the Rules Committee rather than be the subject of amendment in an effort to deal with it in a somewhat cumbersome way under the Bill.
Subject to that point, I commend the Bill to the House, as, I am sure, all hon. and right hon. Members will.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. Leo Abse: I endorse what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) in emphasising the hardship which arises as a consequence of the rule to which he referred. Unfortunately, there is no doubt that a considerable number of defendants are adopting this practice. The Solicitor-General will readily understand that in a county court case the burden falls upon the solicitor for the plaintiff to prepare his case almost completely by the time he issues his summons. Unlike what happens in the High Court, the trial in the county court will not be long postponed. The solicitor cannot rely on having time. No competent solicitor, therefore, will commence his proceedings without first ensuring that his medical reports and engineers' reports are available and that advice on evidence has been taken from counsel. The bulk of the work has been done at the time the summons is issued.
If in negotiating, as, unfortunately, is happening on a wide scale, a demand is made by a plaintiff for a certain amount, very much less is often offered by insurance companies, and, although they know that an action may commence, first, they think that perhaps the plaintiff can be frightened off because rather

than start his action he will take something less, and, secondly, they are confident that if the action is started at all the work done by the plaintiff need not be paid for, and that the trivial sum which arises on fixed costs when the money originally demanded by the plaintiff is paid into the court—for the defendant may know that there is full liability—is all that the plaintiff's solicitor will collect. The burden of this falls not on the solicitor but on the people who have suffered accidents, industrial accidents in particular, because, unfortunately, there seems to be a practice in certain insurance companies dealing a great deal with this type of action to make this type of response.
I hope that the Solicitor-General will appreciate that this is a widespread complaint among solicitors and that, unfortunately, county court judges are becoming embarrassed by it. If the Solicitor-General looks at recent cases he will find that the registrar has awarded more than the fixed costs, that on appeal county court judges have awarded far more and that the insurance companies pursue the case to the Court of Appeal, where the judges evidently feel bound by the rule and feel unable to do anything but to apply it in the strict sense to which my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North referred. I urge that considerable weight should be attached to this matter because it is a widespread and growing mischief and is clearly becoming more harsh on more and more defendants.
The second and only other point that I wish to raise on a Bill which restores jurisdiction to the county courts is this. I wish to enter a caveat. We well know that it is often simple for us in this House to impose new or to restore old burdens on courts, and that the weight of work which, as a consequence, falls on the courts can be very heavy. This has been happening in the last year or two to such an extent in magistrates' courts that clerks to the magistrates are groaning under the weight of Betting and Gaming Acts, Licensing Acts, and so on. We therefore should be very careful about the jurisdiction that we give to the county courts since we know full well how hard they are working and the burdens which they are carrying.
One of the biggest burdens which county court judges have to carry should


be removed. The county courts are being reduced, to a large extent, to debt-collecting agencies for hire-purchase companies. I do not believe that it is right that county court judges, as a consequence of an Act nearly 100 years old, the Debtors Act, 1869, should have the indignity thrust on them of being compelled to squander, as they must, hours of their very valuable time in cajoling and coercing thousands of debtors to hire-purchase companies to make weekly repayments. Is it really the function of county court judges, whose maintenance is paid for by the taxpayers generally, to reduce their courts to being outside departments of hire-purchase finance companies? After all, the problems that arise as a consequence of bringing judgment summonses before county court judges, all of whom are suffering severely from this, stem from the irresponsibility of hire purchase companies in giving reckless credits. Because of this, our county courts are jammed and clogged every month.
I am aware of the considerable strains arising in many county courts in South Wales. I am sure that this applies to county courts in many of the industrial and urban areas, where hours of the judges' valuable time are being spent in dealing with an avalanche of judgment summonses from hire purchase companies, which, I believe, are seeking to exploit the threat of a committal to prison, which is available, to extort high interest hire-purchase payments out of their victims. This is not good enough. It is time that the judges were freed from this work which should be within the jurisdiction of registrars. It is only the considerable dignity of judges that prevents the courts from becoming a complete shambles.
This jurisdiction in the county court judge—it is in him alone, since it cannot be delegated to a registrar—means that on county court day there are not only hundreds of debtors in court but, unfortunately, scores of children. These children are usually with their mothers. Judges realise that the worst thing that they can do is to compel the attendance of husbands, because it only makes matters worse if the husband is dragged away from his work. These children are sensing the atmosphere of fecklessness and lack of concern which arises from

this huge accumulation of debt. They take it as part and parcel of their regular life that they should attend court almost monthly. All the awe and majesty that should be within a county court is being lost.
I am well aware that there are judges who are deeply concerned about mothers with babies in their arms being questioned and cross-examined about their means or the means of their husbands. Because of the present jurisdiction, this has to be done in open court. I do not think that our county courts were ever intended to be used as instruments for debt collecting in this way. Society has changed since 1869. The hire-purchase system is spreading. At a moment when we are considering making a marginal increase in the jurisdiction of county courts, it is right that we should consider how we can relieve the county court judges of burdens such as this. It the Solicitor-General looks into the matter, he will find that hours are spent in this way. Worse still, solicitors, litigants and counsel are being held up for days sometimes because of these judgment summonses clogging the courts.
I am sure that we are all grateful to the Solicitor-General for the lucid manner in which he explained this complex Bill to us. I trust that he will pay attention to the minor complaints which have been made, since I am sure that they have been made only with the intention of trying to help the splendid work which county courts are doing.

7.39 p.m.

The Solicitor-General: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to some of the points which have been raised.
First, I deal with the point raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice). As he anticipated in posing the question, the words "the rateable value" are used in Section 37 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, but I assure him that the wording in Clause 4 will be looked at again.
The House had the advantage of hearing both sides of the legal profession on the point raised by the hon. Members for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) and Pontypool (Mr. Abse). Although I will certainly study the point


afresh, it is one which has been referred to the Rules Committee following the judgment of the Court of Appeal to which reference has been made. It is still under consideration and for consideration by that Committee.
I understand that the difficulty, which obviously one would hope to overcome, is to devise a satisfactory formula which will not open the door to an order for taxed costs in each case. Nevertheless, it is a matter which both hon. Members have emphasised and one which most certainly needs consideration.
In regard to the points raised by the hon. Member for Pontypool in the caveat that he issued, a great burden is thrush upon the county court judges, as the hon. Member has said. In the light of his comments, I will certainly examine the difficult task which they will have to do. The county court has, and must have, the power to commit and this might not be thought to be satisfactory unless carried out by the judge himself. Nevertheless, I will bear in mind the points raised by the hon. Member.
In regard generally to the hon Member's caveat, the Bill represents only a shift. Because there has been a shift under revaluation, there would be a shift to the High Court away from the county court. As the hon. Member clearly understands, the Bill puts back that shift into the proportion and into the position in which it should have been and in which, we hope, it will be.
In moving the Second Reading, I referred to the concurrent jurisdiction of the county court. That is so in respect of Clause 1. With regard to Clause 4, however, the jurisdictions of the county court and the High Court are, as hon. Members will appreciate, mutually exclusive.

Mr. MacDermot: Before finally leaving the point which I raised, can the Solicitor-General explain what is thought to be the reason why, in the circumstances which we are discussing, the plaintiff should not get his taxed costs? The plaintiff gets them in all other cases in which he accepts a payment in promptly. He does in the High Court and in other cases in the county court. I cannot see the need far this rule.

The Solicitor-General: I appreciate that the interpretation by the Court of Appeal has had such a restriction upon it as to render the unfairness to which the hon. Member has referred. I understand that although this matter is under consideration by the Rules Committee, one of the difficulties in mind is not to make a fixed formula which, on some occasions, could also effect or influence an injustice the other way.
I appreciate that the right hon. and learned Member for Newport said that to invite the House to welcome the Bill was a touch of exuberance in which a Law Officer should not permit himself to indulge. I am, therefore, grateful that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and, I understand, the House realise that the Bill is necessary and are prepared to give it a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Rees.]

Committee Tomorrow.

FOREIGN COMPENSATION BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 1.—(PAYMENTS TO FOREIGN COMPENSATION COMMISSION.)

7.42 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas): I beg to move, in page 2, line 15, at the end, to insert:
(2) An Order in Council under section 3 of the Foreign Compensation Act 1950 making provision, in relation to sums paid or to be paid under the preceding subsection, for any of the matters specified in the said section 3 shall not be made unless a draft of the Order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament, and accordingly section 8 (2) of that Act (which provides that all Orders in Council made under the Act shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament) shall not apply to Orders in Council making such provision.
During our discussion of the Bill in Committee the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) proposed an Amendment to the Clause to the effect that any Order in Council made for the purposes of the Clause should be subject to the affirmative procedure and not to the negative procedure


which applies under Section 8 (2) of the Foreign Compensation Act, 1950. I said in Committee that I would accept the Amendment in principle subject to further consideration of the drafting and I undertook that an Amendment would be put down on Report which would have the same purpose as the hon. and learned Member's Amendment. The hon. and learned Member then withdrew his Amendment.
7.45 p.m.
Although my Amendment is worded rather differently from that of the hon. and learned Member, he will, I think, agree that it carries out his intention. It will make the affirmative procedure applicable to all Orders in Council made under Section 3 of the 1950 Act for the purposes of Clause 1. These are the Orders in Council which will govern the distribution of moneys to be provided by Parliament and which will, in particular, establish the rates at which compensation will be paid and the categories of claims to be paid. If the Amendment is agreed to, we expect to lay an Order in Council before the House for these purposes soon after the passage of the Bill. I hope, therefore, that the House will approve the Amendment.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I thank the Joint Under-Secretary for meeting the intention of the Amendment which I moved in Committee. All I have to say to the hon. Gentleman is that when Henry VIII took power to govern by Orders in Council, it was unfortunate that there was no effective Parliament before which drafts could be placed at the time. Modern procedure enables that to be done and the Government will, therefore, be compelled to disclose their intentions in what is otherwise a very weak provision.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

7.47 p.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: The Bill has had a somewhat unusual passage through the House, not least because its full financial consequences could not be known at the time of Second Reading. It is only as a result of the full statement made yesterday in the House that we now know what will be

the real effect of the major Clauses of the Bill. I hope that the House will not let the Bill go by completely undebated, if only to ensure that we are clear about what we are doing.
There is the story which used to be told by Bishop Wilberforce of the greedy curate who, when asked to say grace at a meal, always looked at the table to see whether there wore wine glasses or tumblers. If there happened to be tumblers, die began, "We thank thee, Lord, for these small mercies'. If, however, he saw wine glasses, he would say, "Oh, most bountiful Jehovah". If we look at the Bill and see the effects upon it of the statement made yesterday, we can say that there are wine glasses on some parts of the table and tumblers on other parts.
I certainly welcome very much the fact that under the Bill we are now to be able to compensate to the tune of 100 per cent. about 90 per cent. of the claimants. We ought, however, to recognise that there is a substantial sum which is not accounted for in the claims that have been submitted. The total claims for both Egyptianisation and sequestration of property amounted to over £75 million. The total sum in which we shall be involved here is only £35 million. That sounds a lot of money, but, nevertheless, we must face the fact that the moment we jump down from 100 per cent. to the next step, which is 75 per cent. of the claims, substantial sacrifices will be made.
When the Government declared their policy about this matter, they went out of their way to say—and I think that we all supported the Government when they said it—that we would ask the Egyptian Government for full compensation or complete restoration. I think we must say that the Egyptian Government have completely defaulted on a great dead of that, and we took away the lever which we had over the sterling balances to enforce that, and I think that that is regrettable. But the fact remains. The obligation placed on the Egyptian Government is, I suppose, now on the shoulders of Her Majesty's Government, since they are accepting liability under this Bill.
Because of that it seems to me very important that we should make quite sure whether we are right in approving the use of the word "final" in regard


to this settlement. I should like to feel that the House would probably say that this is, in a very substantial measure, a big step in the right direction, but I should not like to feel it is absolutely final. I would still hope that, if the Egyptian Government still continue to default on the very substantial difference which remains between what was the full measure claimed and what in fact is now going to be given to those with claims worth over £10,000, and if they still resist the perfectly reasonable arguments which have been put to them, we shall in the future be prepared to do a little more. That is why I find it regrettable that in the statement made yesterday the word "final" was used.
Much of the sequestrated property is unusable by those for whom it was desequestrated, and they are the biggest sufferers and benefit least. I think that for many people this will be a very big sacrifice indeed. I would not for a moment accept that there is anything less wrong in treating a company worse than an individual. I would say that companies and individuals here are all involved and there is a clear duty upon the Egyptian Government, a duty which has not been fully met.
Her Majesty's Government have in this Bill gone a long way—and I thank them for it—to meet the most needful of all the claimants. For that we are indeed grateful, but I hope that before we part with the Bill on Third Reading my hon. Friend will explain to the House a little more fully than he has what exactly the statement yesterday really means in relation to the terms of this Bull.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. P. Thomas: I apologise to the House and, indeed, to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) for not having got to my feet sooner. Because of that my hon. Friend got ahead of me, but I should not like him to feel that we were going to part from this Bill without considering exactly what it means and, to use his own words, what we are doing. Therefore, I am pleased to be able to refer to the Bill again and to say to the House exactly what it means.
First of all, I should like to thank hon. Members on both sides of the House

for the expeditious but thorough way in which they have dealt with this Bill at all its stages up to now. As I said on the occasion of Second Reading, this Bill is, in essence, a technical, enabling Measure which gives powers in relation to the Foreign Compensation Commission, and so, perhaps, I may start with that preface and by reminding my hon. Friend that that part of the Bill which he has referred to in particular is Clause 1.
What Clause 1, which was unamended in Committee, does is this. It gives power to the Foreign Compensation Commission to administer or distribute money which might in the future be voted by Parliament. And that is all this Bill does. When we had our Second Reading, I was not, unfortunately, in a position—I apologised at the time—to tell the House what proposals the Government had, but yesterday I was able to make a statement giving in some detail what are our proposals. I do not know whether I should be in order on this Bill to refer to the statement I made yesterday, although I am quite prepared to answer some of the questions which my hon. Friend asked, but I am in some difficulty, for this reason.
Because of the Amendment which has just been passed, there will be an opportunity for debate when the Order in Council is laid before the House. That Order in Council is now subject to the affirmative procedure, and, therefore, there will be a debate on the contents of the Order, which will of course be the scales of payment and also the categories of people who will be able to claim. Having said that, I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not go into the details he seeks, in regard to the very full statement which I made yesterday. All I should like to say about the Order is that it is our intention to lay it as soon as this Bill has had its full passage. We hope that will be at the beginning of next term; that will be 22nd January. That is the date that we hope to lay the Order.
Clause 2 of the Bill, as I explained to the House on Second Reading, will enable the Foreign Compensation Commission to be directed to pay into the Exchequer the sums which have been and which in future will be deducted in respect of loans to claimants. There


was previously no provision to enable the Foreign Compensation Commission to do this legally, and I think the House accepts that these sums should be paid to the Exchequer. That certainly seems to be the view expressed by hon. Members both on Second Reading and in Committee.
Clause 3 of the Bill, which provides for the payment of pensions and other benefits to members of the Foreign Compensation Commission and to the officers and servants of the Commission in appropriate cases, has been welcomed by both sides, both on Second Reading and in Committee. Indeed, the only criticism which I recall was that these provisions have not been made sooner.
There is something I can say about this. The House might like to know that the recently formed Foreign Compensation Commission Staff Association has been recognised by both the Commission and the Foreign Office and is being consulted about a proposed pension scheme which will enable the persons concerned to be given pensions and other benefits similar to those available to other public service employees.
That is the Bill as amended. I think it is right to say that its purposes and its aims have received general acceptance by the House. Therefore, I commend the Bill to the House, and I hope it will be given its Third Reading. I remind my hon. Friend again that it is an enabling Bill, and unless it is given its Third Reading and unless it is passed no money which this House may vote will be able to be administered by the Commission.

7.59 p.m.

Mr. Mitchison: I would not for one moment suppose that the hon. Member will have to threaten this side of the House in that way. As regards Clause 3, I was extremely glad to hear from him the arrangements which are being made to give full effect to what I am sure are the good intentions of the Foreign Office and the Government in this matter of pensions and other benefits.
As regards Clause 2, if I may take it in reverse order, I would not expect the hon. Gentleman again to confess that the Foreign Office slipped up in the matter. I will not repeat the comments that were made at an earlier stage. In regard to

the first Clause, this was, as I had occasion to tell the hon. Gentleman in Committee, a capital instance of what occurred in the case of the South Sea Bubble—an invitation to contribute money for purposes to be disclosed later. The hon. Gentleman has disclosed his purposes in the statement to which he referred, and these purposes will be carried out by Orders in Council. With the exception of one purpose, which is irrelevant to this Bill, the purposes will be carried out by Orders in Council, and we shall then have before us the details of what was set out in the statement but what, perhaps, can hardly be put into a Third Reading debate.
I would merely say to the hon. Gentleman and to the House that I appreciate very much the tale of the cleric who judged the form of his blessing by the appearance of the table, and distinguished between cases where there were wine glasses and cases where there were tumblers. While I think the hon. Gentleman is quite right on the substance of the matter, we might not agree about the cases which were tumblers and the cases which involved wine glasses, and I would also say to him that one cannot always judge beforehand even on this principle. There is a story of a Scotsman who was given a liqueur glass of Curacao, who liked it very much and who said he would have some more in a mug. One never knows where one is getting if one tries to decide on empty glasses, and there are some empty glasses involved here. When I said that the Government were stingy, I mentioned a couple of instances which did not happen to be the same as those to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but if the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill says, "You really do not know enough to say that", I think I may have to agree with him. We shall, no doubt, see more when the Orders in Council come up.
Lastly, may I say in all sincerity to the hon. Gentleman that I personally feel most grateful to him for the clarity with which he has put the Bill before us and for the courtesy which he has shown to his opponents as well as to his friends in handling it at all stages.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

TOWYN TREWAN COMMON BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir ROBERT GRIMSTON in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(EXTINGUISHMENT OF RIGHTS OF COMMON AND OTHER RIGHTS.)

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: I want to raise one or two very small points, one of which was raised on Second Reading. I wonder if the Under-Secretary can tell us the extent of the runway as the result of this extension authorised by Clause 1 of the Bill, and whether he can give us some idea of the extension of the use of the additional facilities which this will offer to Valley Airfield.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Julian Ridsdale): The final 600 feet of the extension will be on the land to be enclosed, the other 900 feet being within our existing boundary on land over which the rights of the common have been extinguished by the Towyn Trewan Common Act, 1950. That is the actual length of the runway extension. In addition there will be an over-run 600 feet long and 450 feet wide which will be hardened and surfaced with tarmac to take the weight of any aircraft which may run on it. I hope that covers the point made by the hon. Member.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3.—(COMPENSATION IN RESPECT OF RIGHTS OF COMMON.)

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I wish to ask a question about compensation under Clause 3. When the Under-Secretary spoke on Second Reading, he said that negotiations in relation to the compensation were then proceeding with the commoners, that the commoners had appointed a surveyor with whom officials

of his Department were negotiating. I should like to know whether the hon. Gentleman is able to report any progress in the negotiations. Can he give us something more than the estimate of £1,500 which is mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum? The sum is small enough in all conscience, if the estimate is an accurate one, and £1,500 divided between over 200 commoners will not give them very much compensation in respect of the rights which they have lost. I hope that the Under-Secretary will also be able to tell the Committee that the commoners in Anglesey will not have to wait a long time for their money.

Mr. Ridsdale: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the commoners will not have to wait a long time for their money, and, if it will help to clarify the position, I should like to say that the current position is that, until the Bill has been passed, it is not possible for the statutory committee of conservators to be appointed to agree the compensation. To enable discussions to be opened and the amount of compensation to be provisionally agreed, a non-statutory committee of conservators representing the parishes concerned with the common has been set up, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
This committee has appointed a valuer to conduct the negotiations with the Air Ministry's representative. There has been one meeting with the valuer appointed by the commoners to negotiate on their behalf, and, after considering his brief, he has told us that he is now ready to continue the negotiations. There will, I hope, be another meeting very shortly, and we shall try to reach agreement with him as quickly as we can, but it is not necessary for agreement to be reached before the Bill is enacted. I hope that will satisfy the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes).

Mr. C. Hughes: I am much obliged to the Under-Secretary. May I ask him one other question on a quite separate matter relating to subsection (1, b)? It is stated in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum:
It is not possible to forecast the incidence, if any, of disputes over title which will need to be referred to conveyancing counsel of the High Court, and thus expenditure under this provision cannot be assessed. It is not, however, expected to be very great.


Can the Under-Secretary tell the Committee whether he thinks there will be, or are likely to be, any disputes over title under this Clause?

Mr. Ridsdale: Against the possibility that there may be disputes over questions of title before the compensation is finally agreed, provision has been made for such disputes to be referred to one of the conveyancing counsel of the High Court and for the Secretary of State to bear the costs. Counsel's costs will be allowed for that purpose, and I trust that this provision will satisfy the constituents of the hon. Gentleman. I think it is a very fair and quick way of dealing with any disputes that may arise.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4.—(EXTINGUISHMENT OF PRIVATE RIGHTS OF WAY.)

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. C. Hughes: In Clause 4 there is a reference to a footpath which was also referred to by the Under-Secretary in his Second Reading speech. Under the Bill, this footpath is not to be permanently disturbed, but it will be diverted while a drain, which is mentioned in Clause 2, is being built. Can the Under-Secretary give us any indication how long it will take for this drain to be built, because I think the people of the locality who frequently use this footpath, will be asking whether these works are to take a long time. It may be helpful if the hon. Gentleman will indicate how long these operations are to take.
There is another footpath over the sandbank to the south-west of the airfield. This one is not specifically dealt with in the Bill. Can the Under-Secretary state specifically that access will be available along it?

Mr. Ridsdale: In reply to the hon. Gentleman's first question, we hope to proceed as quickly as we possibly can with the work. In any case, we hope to finish our works by August, 1963. So it should be well before then that we should he able to put the footpath right.
The other footpath comes under Clause 5. Perhaps I might deal with the point

now and say that the Bill does not deal specifically with the footpath because we have no intention of altering the right of access that has been given and that the commoners have enjoyed along it.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6.—(POWERS FOR CONSERVATORS TO PERMIT ADDITIONAL WORKS.)

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. C. Hughes: On Second Reading I raised the question of additional works under this Clause. The Under-Secretary then said that the works would be of a restricted nature. He also said that he had offered a formal undertaking to consult the Anglesey County Council before any start was made on these additional works. I believe that the county council has accepted the offer. I wonder whether the Under-Secretary could confirm that.

Mr. Ridsdale: I am glad that the hon. Member has raised this point. The Anglesey County Council expressed concern about the Clause, fearing that it would make it possible to swallow up all the remaining common land without recourse to further legislation. That concern was echoed during the Second Reading. I welcome the fact that since then the county council has agreed not to press for the Clause to be amended in this respect but to accept an undertaking by the Air Ministry to consult it on any proposals for additional works under the Clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 7 and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Preamble agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I do not wish to detain the House for mare than a few minutes, but I


should like to thank the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) and hon. Members on both sides of the House for the useful suggestions which have been made in the course of our debates and for their co-operation in helping me to introduce what is my maiden Ministerial Bill. My thanks are also due to the local people of Anglesey for the help which they have given in connection with the Bill. Help to the Royal Air Force from that quarter is no new thing. For a long period the inhabitants of Anglesey have been excellent friends to the Royal Air Force. May this long continue.

8.13 p.m.

Mr. Mulley: I do not wish to detain the House, but I think it would be proper for us to express our congratulations to the Under-Secretary upon his competence and the smooth passage that the Bill has had. We have been completely persuaded by him that this is excellent both for the Royal Air Force and for the people of Anglesey. But I must warn him that perhaps not all his Ministerial Measures will meet with such a smooth and pleasant passage.
I hope that the Bill will not only serve a most useful purpose to the Royal Air Force but make a contribution to the increasing prosperity of the people of Anglesey. I trust that it may one day be possible for the extended runway to be put to civil use, an idea which my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) has very close to his heart. He has wholeheartedly sought additional employment and possibilities for the people of Anglesey, and I hope this Bill will make a contribution in that general direction as well as being a very good thing for the Royal Air Force.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

ELECTRICITY (BORROWING POWERS) (SCOTLAND) BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

8.15 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I should like to thank the House for the generally favourable reception which the Bill has received. As hon. Members know, its purpose is to increase from £135 million to £175 million the statutory limit on the amount of borrowed money which the South of Scotland Electricity Board may have outstanding between now and the end of March, 1965. As my hon. Friend has explained, the reason why 31st March, 1965, has been chosen is that the Electricity (Borrowing Powers) Act, 1959, is due to expire on that date.
The Bill has been discussed in detail in the Scottish Grand Committee, and probably the main criticism of it has been that it does not go far enough and that some limit higher than £175 million should have been prescribed. I hope that we have been able to satisfy hon. Members that during the period with which the Bill is concerned—during the next two years or so—this increase of £40 million in the borrowing limit is a reasonable one, based as it is on the best estimate that can be made of what the Board's requirements for external finance will be.
As my hon. Friend explained during the debate on the consideration of the principle of the Bill, a substantial programme of expenditure is involved, including an extra £24 million on generating stations, £11 million more on transmission and £16 million more on distribution, and I hope that we have been able to satisfy hon. Members that a sizeable proportion of this programme represents new investment which the Board will undertake in the next two years and which has been made necessary by the growth in demand for electricity in the south of Scotland.
I know that some hon. Members feel that the Government should be encouraging the Board to embark on a more ambitious programme, and, in


particular, that new coal-fired stations should be built now in order to make use of the material resources in the industrial belt of Scotland and to provide employment for men in the mining industry. I should like here to make one observation on this question. The commissioning of a power station takes time. The station at Kincardine, for instance, was approved in 1955 but it was not until more than three years afterwards that the first set was commissioned, while the last of the five units which will go to make up the station is not expected to be in operation until some time next year. Similarly in the case of the station now being built at Cockenzie, while my consent to the project was given towards the end of last year, it will be another four years yet before the first of the four 300-mW sets is supplying power to the grid. Essentially, therefore, these generating stations are long-term projects.
But, as I have explained, the South of Scotland Electricity Board is planning its programme a number of years ahead, and as part of this programme it is considering how best to meet the level of demand to meet the situation which is expected to exist after the Cockenzie station has been completed. In this connection, as hon. Members have been informed, the Board is awaiting a consultants' report, and I should like to repeat the assurance that has already been given to the House that when the Board comes to submit its proposals for this station we shall take full account of all social and economic factors involved, including the effect on the coal industry.
I would further make the point that the financing of this new station takes us well beyond 31st March, 1965, and the period covered by this Bill. I hope that hon. Members will not belittle the importance of the additional power the Bill confers on the South of Scotland Board. The Bill has been reported to the House without Amendment and I commend it as a Measure which will enable the Board to carry though its programme of development in the next two years and assist it in its objective of providing efficient electricity service to the public it serves.

8.20 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: The Secretary of State hoped that he had satisfied us about the provisions of die Bill. I am sorry to say that he has certainly not done so. He said that the Bill had not been amended, but it was quite impossible for us, because of the financial provisions, to move any Amendment. The discussions had to take place on each Clause as a whole.
We welcome the additional £40 million. We know that it will be put to very good use by the Board, but at this stage we still feel that the extra money is hopelessly inadequate for the needs of electricity in Scotland. We shall not oppose the Third Reading, however, because we want the Board to be assured at least of this amount of money.
The Secretary of State has pointed out what a long time-lag there is between consent to a project and when one gets electricity from it. That time-lag could be shortened considerably if there were a real desire to do so. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the coal-fired station. Those of us who come from mining areas are very concerned about this. It is at this time that a decision should be made on another coal-fired station.
No reasons adduced by the Secretary of State tonight or by his colleagues during Second Reading and in Committee have led us to believe that it is not of the greatest importance that a decision should be made now. But it is impossible for the Board to make such a decision on its own. The right hon. Gentleman knows only too well that the Board is bound completely by Government decisions in the White Paper on the Financial and Economic Obligations of the Nationalised Industries. Even if the Board had the greatest desire to build another coal-fired station, it would be impossible for it to do so because of lack of finance.
The right hon. Gentleman has told us the plans of the Board. I wish to put some questions to him. They were also put during the Committee stage. We are convinced that if we are to get the expansion of industry which Scotland desperately needs then we shall have to have a far greater programme for the supply of electricity than is envisaged in this Bill.
Can we take it that the Secretary of State has resigned himself to the fact that Scotland must always have a high level of unemployment? In November the total was nearly 94,000 and possibly the figure for this month will be even higher. If he is resigned to the fact that the Government just do not have a clue to the solution of Scotland's problem of unemployment, it may well be that the provisions of the Bill are adequate for the kind of Scotland that he and the Government envisage.
To us, however, the provisions are hopelessly inadequate for the Scotland we envisage. Even if the Government stay their full term—heaven help Scotland if they do—there is no doubt that when the election comes we will have a British Labour Government with a policy that will bring work to our good Scottish people.
We are concerned about that in this Bill. We are concerned that the South of Scotland Electricity Board should have the financial means now to plan for the great expansion of industry which will come with the next Labour Government. It is because of the inadequacy of those means that we are so highly critical of the Bill.
Today I put a Question to the Minister of Labour asking him what had happened to the miners from two pits closed in my constituency this year. About 200 men from these pits are still without jobs in an area where the majority of the men on the unemployment register have been on it for a long time, some of them for years. Those 200 men are in a hopeless position. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) put a Question today about what was happening to miners in his area who had been put out of work, not by any action of the National Coal Board or through any Government pressure on the Board, but because of a fall in a shaft. The figures which he was given were frightening.
It is evident that if a decision is not made almost immediately by the South of Scotland Electricity Board, more and more Scottish pits will be closed. I imagine that, before deciding whether to close a pit, the Coal Board considers Scotland's future needs for coal. If it

were decided to provide another coal-fired power station in Scotland, the Coal Board would be able to keep pits open in the knowledge that the coal would be needed. Although the Secretary of State says that there is a long time between consent and a project actually producing, the fact that a decision had been made would show the Coal Board what prospects there were for the sale of coal in Scotland.
Last night I listened to an account of the social difficulties caused by the almost enforced migration of our miners to coal fields in England. I was horrified to find that some of the houses being built by the Coal Board will be in completely isolated communities. It is bad enough to lose one's job in Scotland, but it is far worse to be taken to an area where one has to live in an isolated community, as too many of our miners and their families have had to do. All these things worry those of us who are deeply concerned about the kind of lives which our Scottish people want to live.
In Committee we were given figures to show that if this decision were taken immediately, it would mean work for 10,000 miners, not a number to be sneezed at with Scotland's present unemployment. The Electricity Board is tied hand and foot by the Government's control of its finances, and I ask the Secretary of State to reconsider his approach, even at this stage. If it is necessary to bring in another Bill, I assure him that we will pass it gladly and quickly. Our only hope for Scotland is to ensure that everything is done now to prepare for the big expansion of industry which I know will come in the future.

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence: I make no apology for intervening in this debate on a very important Bill to finance the power base of modern industry. The power base in Scotland is lower than it should be, although it may be adequate for what is there now.
I was frightened last Thursday by a letter in The Times from Professor Jewkes. I believe that Professor Jewkes is a famous economist at Cambidge or Oxford—one of those mediaeval institutions with their origins in the Middle Ages but still existing in the twentieth century. Professor Jewkes suggested


that it might be a good thing for people to move south. He thinks that when an area has decayed there should be opportunities for its population to migrate to areas which are always to the south. When I read that, I thought that it was a shocking thing to say in 1962, because history tells me that Neanderthal man was nomadic. That was 6,000 years ago. He exhausted an area. He created a desert and moved on to another area which he cultivated. He again created a desert in that area, and moved on once more.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. The purpose of this Bill is to increase the borrowing powers of the South of Scotland Electricity Board. We are getting a little far from that.

Mr. Bence: I am coming to the point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. In support of the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), I am saying that the provisions of this Bill will not provide the power that we need far expansion but will provide only that amount of power in keeping with further contraction. I am pointing out that 6,000 years ago contraction was necessary because of cultivation and exhaustion of resources. With the coming of the pastoral age, in which I hope we are still living, people were prepared to sustain the area in which they found themselves. We are prepared to do this in Scotland. There are 5½ million people in Scotland, and we think that there ought to be many more. Too many people have left, and we think that the reason for their leaving is that the power base is not big enough. There is not sufficient power to sustain them.
We know that a lot of Scotland has been despoiled, as has the North-East, but we believe that we have sufficient scientific and technical knowledge in the area to warrant us staying there and not leaving it to be despoiled any further. We think that this can be done by providing new forms of power of which electricity is one, and I never thought that in the twentieth century a famous professor of economics would suggest that we should adopt the nomadic tactics of Neanderthal man. I think that as we are living in the pastoral age we should control our resources and emu-

late what has been done in the Tennessee Valley in America. They built it up under a new deal and created an area of prosperity, and I believe that this is what we should do in Scotland.
The South of Scotland Electricity Board has been made responsible for providing £l1 million out of its internal resources. I have no objection to an economic organisation, or a business organisation of any kind, providing money out of its savings to create new forms of wealth. This is sound economics. It is sound policy for individuals, and for society, but it is not sound policy if limitations placed upon the institution which is being asked to perform this function inhibit it from using its resources to the maximum to provide those savings. This is what has happened in the electricity industry.
The electricity industry in this country is the greatest success story of State enterprise in the twentieth century. Let us make no mistake about this. This fact will, I am sure, be acknowledged by everyone in the country. I believe that its success could be immeasurably greater if it were in a position to manufacture and contract for the installation of all these resources which it has done more than any body in the country to make people here appreciative of, and conditioned to.
I said this on Second Reading. I am one of those fortunate married men whose wife is a member of an association started by the Board in Scotland. I think that it is called the Electrical Association for Women. Its purpose is to educate housewives how to mend a fuse. In a modern all-electric house it is terrible to arrive home and to find that there is no power simply because a fuse has blown. If a wife knows how to mend a fuse, this is a wonderful thing for a man, and I am grateful to the Board for the good work it has done in advertising this training for women in almost every town. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North is a member of this Association. If she is not, I am sure that the Association would be only too happy to show her how to tackle simple electrical jobs. All that one needs is a couple of insulated screwdrivers and the job can be safely done.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: Does not my hon. Friend agree that skilled people are available to do this work? If housewives do these jobs it may increase unemployment among electricians, especially in Scotland, where I understand the problem is very acute.

Mr. Bence: With due respect to my hon. Friend, Scotland is a land where the distances between households, towns and sources of supply are very great. If a person lives in a house in a small village, which is ten or even twenty miles away from the nearest electrical engineer, it is nice for him to have a wife who can mend a fuse. I am sure that my hon. Friend would not begrudge any man—even me—the pleasure of having a wife who could mend a fuse.

Mr. William Ross: Unmarried men might prefer the darkness.

Mr. Bence: It is always dangerous to have to choose a wife in the dark.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The question of choosing wives does not enter into the debate.

Mr. Bence: Choosing wives is always an interesting subject, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was led astray by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). I hope that I shall live to see the day when the Hydro-Electric Board and the South of Scotland Board—or an amalgamation of the two—will be given back the power to carry out contracting, wiring houses, manufacturing and tendering and contracting for the supply of all electrical goods. This would be especially valuable in Scotland.
No public corporation or local authority can say to its creditors, individually or collectively, "We borrowed £10 million from you. We are sorry, but the economic situation in our industry is such that you will have to forgo £8 million of what we owe you. We are writing down our debt to £2 million". That is what private enterprise has done. It was done quite often in the inter-war years. Private companies often wrote down debts from £1 to 1s. 6d. I remember that one went down as law as is. 3d. But no State enterprise can do this. It has to pay the money back. It cannot write down the debt.
If the South of Scotland Electricity Board got into a bad way it would have

to be financed by the taxpayers in one way or another. Once a capital debt is created the money borrowed cannot be written off, as can be done in the case of a private company. A private company can have a meeting of its shareholders, and with the agreement of the creditors it can write down its indebtedness and start up again, perhaps under a different name. A State enterprise cannot go into voluntary liquidation, although it is a legitimate commercial activity, but friends of mine have done it regularly, all their lives. I have two friends in the South whose fortunes are based on the fact that they successfully went into voluntary liquidation. They had good wives, nephews, father and mothers. But State enterprises cannot do that.
In those circumstances, I do not see why a State enterprise should be subjected to other commercial terms. If we insist on the electricity supply industry obeying commercial laws as they apply to private enterprise, the industry ought to have the rights of private enterprise. The Italian Government set up a State enterprise known as E.N.I. Its board ran it as a private enterprise, and the Italian Government never interfered. That is not the case with the Electricity Board. Its hands are tied. It is a mystery to me how it has been so successful. I strongly resent this obligation placed upon it to find £11 million out of its income for capital and development when it is inhibited form doing what any ordinary commercial firm can do.
I come to the question of the coal-fired station. I feel deeply about this. There are miners in my constituency where pits are to be closed down. They would not argue, and I certainly would not argue, in terms of £5 per ton of coal, and that coal can he got cheaper in Yorkshire than in Dunbartonshire. I do not dispute that. It is well known that we get cheaper oil out of the Middle East than we do from the Gulf of Mexico, but we get oil from both places. I believe that this industry, which is bound by certain social conventions created by the State, should play its part in helping to solve what is in Scotland a very difficult social problem.
We are to have miners displaced in an economy where there is too much labour. I could understand it if in Scotland we


had 10,000 unemployed and 50,000 vacancies. Then I would say, "Close all the pits because we have other jobs for the men," but I believe that in a country where we have 95,000 unemployed it is socially and economically desirable to employ as many men as we can in getting the indigenous fuel resources until employment demands go up, and then we can perhaps gradually wipe out the pits because we have other jobs for the men to go to.
This is what one does in one's social life. I believe that few men spend their lives acting purely on economic motives—there are other motives—and I believe that here is a case where we have the indigenous resources in our country and if we do not use them—if we say that it is cheaper to get oil from somewhere else—and stop getting coal out of the bowels of the earth we shall never get it again—it is finished. We shall have destroyed that source of power. A coal mine is not like a factory. One can grease up machines, put them in mothballs, lock the doors of the factory, and in ten years' time put out an advertisement, "This factory will be opened. We shall want 5,000 men." One cannot do that with a coal mine. Once it is shut, it is shut for ever.
I believe that with this situation in Scotland these is every justification for a coal-fired station to keep on as many miners as possible. I do not want men to go down the pits. I was bred in a Welsh coalfield and if I had had to get my living by digging coal I should have died at the age of 14. I have told my wife many times that if we had had to depend on my going down the mine to get coal, we should have had to burn the furniture to keep the house warm. It is a terrible life, crawling along to the coal face in a tunnel which is only 18 in, high. It is a shocking business. I cannot understand why as a civilised society, having discovered alternative means of providing power, we have not had the common decency to make sacrifices in order to provide alternative forms of employment for these men—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now getting wide of the Bill. I can understand if he wishes to give certain illustrations, but now he is going far too wide.

Mr. Bence: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. But as one who was reared in a coalfield I feel strongly for the welfare of coalminers, men who, as did their parents and their grandparents before them, have to dig for coal in the earth, which is a hazardous job. I do not like to go wide of the Bill under discussion but I hope that I shall be forgiven—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must find another opportunity to express his feelings.

Mr. Bence: I was about to conclude my speech. I hope that the Secretary of State will impress upon the Government that whatever may be the future form of power generation in the industrial belt of Scotland there will be a coal-fired station which will prove to be for the good of our democratic institutions and for the social contentment and betterment of the people who live in the industrial belt of Scotland.

8.52 p.m.

Mr. William Ross: This Bill represents a confession of failure on the part of the Government. We discussed it exhaustively in the Scottish Committee and that fact was apparent. Now we are extending the borrowing power limits of the South of Scotland Electricity Board from £135 million to £175 million. We have been told that if we do not do this the present limit will be reached by March of next year. That amount of capital investment was supposed to last the Board until 1965. The Government who have cabined, cribbed and confined this public industry are just two years out. In other words, the extent of their meanness is two years full development.
That is not the whole story. The new limit of £175 million is attained—that is the limit of the outstanding borrowing—only if in this current year, and the future years until 1965, there is more revenue which must be used on capital development. There is only one way to raise revenue and that is by using electricity. In Scotland, be they farmers, industrialists, housewives or people in shops, the people are the consumers. In Glasgow and the west of Scotland people are complaining about the changes of tariff for the provision of


electricity in off-peak periods. One must bear in mind that the money spent is not all spent on generation. That is only part of the job of the Board. There is also transmission and distribution.
All this is capital development and, as I understand it, the Board is well away into next year from the point of view of capital development in respect of distribution and it may well be that the Board has oversold. We can see how this type of limitation has inhibited the Board. Were that not enough, we had the restrictions and limitations placed on the North of Scotland Board. Now we have in the South of Scotland the fantastic position that already the peak load of last year has been passed. Anyone strolling through the shopping centres of Glasgow tonight would see a display of lighting which would dazzle even the display in Oxford Street and Regent Street. The Glasgow Corporation has been told by the South of Scotland Electricity Board that it may be faced with hours of darkness and the same thing has been told to shopkeepers.
How has this position arisen? Because the Goverment nave not provided the wherewithal. It is the Government who authorise every bit of capital investment for which this money has to be used, and the Government have not given the all-clear for the necessary development.
I am sure the Secretary of State for Scotland will know that, quite apart from any coal-fired stations, oil-fired Stations or other stations, the South of Scotland Electricity Board is at the Moment buying jet engines as stand-bys in case what it expects to come during the winter, a strain on the load, does come about. This is a new way of keeping our aircraft industry going. It makes up the gaps in the Government's "stop-go" capital development in respect of public industry. What my hon. Friends have been asking is whether or not the amount of money to be provided by the Bill will be enough. Will it enable the Board to go ahead with developmets which are urgently needed from the paint of view of power now, tomorrow and in the development of Scottish industry which we still hope—we are optimistic—is to come, if not

under this Government then under one which will replace it soon?
We have not had an answer on that yet. The Prime Minister, in answer to a Question put by me the other day, seemed to accept the idea that this was the time when we should go ahead with necessary public works. Anyone who read the Scottish newspapers today would see the contracts placed with Babcock and Wilcox and other engineering firms in respect of a generating scheme at Cockenzie. If the Secretary of State used his powers with the money we are authorising for yet another major coal-fired station, he would bring hope, not only to miners in Scotland but to engineers and all the supplying industries. This is what we need; this is his opportunity.
Instead of whispering sweet nothings into a microphone and looking nice into a television camera, if he used the powers he has got to do something he would be meeting the challenge which faces Scotland and which faces him as Scotland's Secretary of State. This is what we have been urging him to do all along. What is he going to do about it? The position of the South of Scotland Electricity Board in relation to this winter is the same as that of Scotland in relation to industry. It is development or darkness. We want development. We want to be sure that there is sufficient money within this Bill to ensure adequate development. Even as they erred in 1959, it may be that they are erring now.
The only good thing about the Bill is that probably there is enough in it to keep us going until after the next General Election. After the next General Election our noble family will have disappeared from St. Andrews House and there will be people there who really want to do something for Scotland. When I think of the now silent member of the trio telling us how Tory back benchers want to do something for Scotland, I look at the Tory back benches—and see not a single one present.

Mr. Bence: A Sassenach has come in now.

Mr. Ross: That is even more of a reflection on Scottish Tory Members. Where is the Liberal Party? It has gone too. So we are left once again with the necessity to do what we have been doing


for 11 years, and asking the Secretary of State for Scotland to make adequate provision for industrial development in Scotland. In this case it is the South of Scotland Electricity Board.
The proper spending of this money and the proper timing of the spending of this money could make all the difference between prosperity and hardship in industries other than the electricity industry. The coal-fired station would mean so much to the miners. There is the development of engineering, and a decision to use a coal-fired station might well be the first major step in the revival of that Scottish industry which has always been heralded but which never comes.

9.1 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Leburn): I think I find myself largely in agreement with the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) when he said that we want development. Of course, we want development. My right hon. Friend, however, would not agree with the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) when she suggested that he had become reconciled to unemployment in Scotland in perpetuity. Of course, my right hon. Friend would not agree with that.
Under this Bill we are dealing with the provision of electricity in Scotland between now and 31st March, 1965. At previous stages of the Bill I have given figures relating to forecasts which the South of Scotland Electricity Board has made for the years ahead, and I think it might be useful if I were to give those figures again, for they demonstrate that far from leaving things as they are at the moment, adequate provision will be made in the years ahead, according to the information available to us.
We know that the estimated demand for 1962–63 was some 2,500 mW, and I think the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) will be particularly interested when I tell him that the maximum at any one half-hour this year has been 2,448. The figure increases over the years until 1970–71 to an estimated figure of 4,520; that is from 2,500 to 4,520. Therefore, I think it will be seen that estimated demand, while not doubled, will very nearly be doubled, and, on a spot forecast of the Board for the year 1975–76, the figure is 5,790. The

Board is planning on those figures. Surely nobody can say that on figures such as these there will not be ample room for development in Scotland.
The hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North said that this Bill was hopelessly inadequate for the needs of the electricity industry in Scotland. If she were looking a number of years ahead—say, five, ten or fifteen years—I would agree with her, but here we are considering—and my right hon. Friend explained this very clearly when he moved the Third Reading of the Bill—a period of two years or so ahead, and we believe that we are making adequate provision for cur requirements.
Most of the discussion has centred around the importance of coming to a decision about a coal-fired station. My right hon. Friend touched on this point in his speech. This would be a very important project. We all agree on that. There is no doubt about it. At an earlier stage, I indicated that, if it was to be producing between 2,000 and 2,400 mW, it might be expected to cost anything in the region of £70 to £80 million. It would be of the greatest importance to the mining industry of Scotland.
I believe that all that is between us here is that hon. Members opposite say that we should blindfold ourselves now and go for the coal-fired station without giving any consideration whatever to the economics of the project. The South of Scotland Electricity Board has asked consultants to report on the whole project. I have explained before this that the consultants' report is expected early in the new year. The board will have to take a certain amount of time to consider it.

Mr. E. G. Willis: Really!

Mr. Leburn: Certainly, yes. This is what is between us. Hon. Members opposite would go into this blindfold. I do not think that that is right, and I believe that to do so could be a great disservice in the long run to Scotland.

Mr. Willis: What is between us is that we on this side protest at the way the matter is being dealt with. We want it dealt with as a matter of urgency. The hon. Gentleman has not suggested that the project will be advanced by a single day. The whole problem in


Scotland is one of urgency. Should not the project be advanced as rapidly as possible? It is possible to advance programmes without doing stupid things.

Mr. Lebnrn: Of course.

Mr. Willis: Then why not advance it?

Mr. Leburn: The Board has to make up its mind whether it is to be a coal-fired station, an oil-fired station, or a nuclear station. My night hon. Friend made quite clear that, when the Board's proposals were put to the Government, the Government would have a responsibility to take into account not only the economic aspects but the social aspects of the case as well.
Nevertheless, once the matter has been considered by the South of Scotland Electricity Board and proposals are put forward, even if authority were given at once to go ahead with the station—I quite understand the feeling of hon. Members opposite—the amount of money we are here dealing with up to the 31st March, 1965, is not the sort of money which is required for that project. There will be other moneys which will have to be legislated for for a big project of that kind.
I accept the criticism that, perhaps, the Government should have said that, instead of bringing in a Bill to carry us forward until 31st March, 1965, we ought to bring in a Bill to carry us forward until March, 1975. But there will have to be a Bill making provision for a great deal of money between now and 1975. In view of the fact that the 1959 Act is terminated on 31st March, 1965, we thought that that was the most appropriate date.
This money, the £40 million, covers all the requirements, so far as we can judge at present, until that date. I have told the House, and I have told the Scottish Committee before now, that, of course, a great deal more money will be required in Scotland for the future development of electricity. There is no doubt about that. But I believe that for our present requirements this is adequate.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: The Under-Secretary of State listened to all that was said when we discussed the principle of the Bill and to all that was

said during the Committee stage and he has listened to all that has been said this evening, but he still does not understand what we are saying. We are not saying that the Bill should have included a larger sum to be paid between now and 1975 or 1970 or any other date. What we are saying is that, as far as we can judge, the additional £40 million which the South of Scotland Electricity Board may borrow when the Bill becomes law, between now and March, 1965, is inadequate if Scotland is to prosper, if her economy is to expand and if the Government would take the brakes off and allow the South of Scotland Electricity Board to get on with the job that it has to do on behalf of the people of Scotland.
The Under-Secretary of State knows perfectly well that the Board's programmes have been trimmed by the Government. He knows that the last time that the Government trimmed capital expenditure on electricity they could not very well stop the big capital projects in the construction of power stations without being involved in very considerable compensation payments to the contractors. They therefore made a cut in transmission and distribution. The result of that was that a great many people in Scotland who might have taken electricity which was being or could be generated were not able to get it because the transmission wires were not able to carry it.
Recently, the Glasgow Corporation decided to "live it up" a little—I do not know whether it was taking the advice of the Secretary of State—by putting on some lights just to make the city a little more attractive to Christmas shoppers. It did an excellent job of it. It is a beautiful display, and I think that it will be a great encouragement to shoppers to go to Glasgow to make their Christmas purchases. I hope that trade in Glasgow benefits as a result of what the Corporation has done.

Sir Myer Galpern: In addition to that, Ayr only wanted to light up three Christmas trees but was told that it could not get the electricity to do so.

Mr. Fraser: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Glasgow has done this, but the South of Scotland Electricity Board has had to warn Glasgow that the electricity


supply may not be adequate to keep the lights going. This is at a time when industry in Glasgow has greatly reduced its demand on the electricity supply.
During the weekend I was approached by a member of the staff of Beardmores in Glasgow, which has the only electric steel furnaces in Scotland. These furnaces are not working; they are idle. If one of the electric furnaces were working, it would consume far more electricity than all the twinkling lights in Glasgow put together. If Beardmores could get some additional work, or if it could get back some of the work which has been transferred from Glasgow to its parent Company, Firth Brown, at Sheffield and the electric furnaces were switched on, all the electric lights in Glasgow would be switched off. Surely this is evidence that the capital expenditure on this industry has been inadequate in the past and has been over-trimmed by the Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) mentioned the position at Ayr. In my constituency, the Borough of Hamilton set about putting up Christmas lights. I should let the right hon. Gentleman have a copy of last weekend's Hamilton Advertiser to get the comments of some of the shopkeepers, who paid 50 per cent. of the cost. Because the transmission lines into Hamilton are so inadequate, they had to put up so few lights that one cannot notice them. One goes through Hamilton without seeing them. The shopkeepers do not like this. This is because capital investment in the transmission lines was hopelessly inadequate. We have no reason to believe that the provision in the Bill is adequate for the capital works that have to be carried through. That is why we are so critical of the right Gentleman.
The Secretary of State must have read the letters in the Scottish newspapers of recent weeks and months from consumers who feel that they have been cheated by the South of Scotland Electricity Board over the off-peak tariffs. These are people who were talked into taking an off-peak load at certain times of the day. Now the Board finds that it cannot supply the demand, so it has had to adjust the off-peak tariff and the hours at which off-peak electricity can be supplied, because there is not enough to supply the demand.
I live in a part of the country which suffers quite frequent electricity cuts. We have had one rather long one already this winter, and we had several last winter, because there was so much cheeseparing on the transmission lines into that part of the country. Nothing which has been said by the Secretary of State or by the Under-Secretary gives any reassurance that this weakness in our electricity supply system will be dealt with in the short run. There has been no indication that anything will be done to deal with it.
Whenever the Under-Secretary replies to our suggestions about the construction of a new coal-fired power station, he tells us about the consultants who have been appointed by the South of Scotland Board. Does the Board have to be told by a firm of private enterprise consultants what is the cheapest way to generate electricity? No private enterprise consultant can tell the publicly-owned electricity industry what is the cheapest method of production. It is the consultants who have to be told by the Board what it costs to produce electricity in the different types of station.

Mr. Leburn: Does the hon. Member accept that the Board has to generate electricity as cheaply as possible?

Mr. Fraser: I will come to that presently. The hon. Gentleman made the case for the employment of those private enterprise consultants. They would not know of the cost of producing electricity unless the Board told them. Therefore, the information must be given to the Board before the consultants decide to pass it back to the Board. This is not a very clever bit of work.
The Under-Secretary suggested that the Opposition would have the Board go for a coal-fired station blindfold, as if we had never built a coal-fired station before and did not know the cost of producing electricity in such a station. What absolute nonsense. The South of Scotland Board produces electricity at ·45d. to ·5d in the coal-fired stations.
The Secretary of State—or his predecessors—decided for prestige purposes to build a nuclear station down at Hunterston to keep up with the Joneses in the South. What is electricity going


to cost there? A little more than 1d. per unit, more than twice what it costs to produce electricity in a coal-fired station.
The cheapest way to generate electricity is in hydro stations. I believe that there is not any question about that. The cheapest electricity of all is the electricity which is produced in the hydro stations, and I advise the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary to look at the cost of generating electricity in those hydro stations which were built in the 'thirties. They are getting electricity for practically nothing now. If they are looking only at the cost of generating electricity, let them build all the hydro stations they can build. But, of course, it is not only a question of generation: there is the matter of transmission.
If the Board is seeking now in a conventional station, a thermal station, to get the cheapest electricity it can get, I believe it may find that marginally, as a result of the differential coal prices introduced twelve months ago, a coal-fired power station would be dearer. The calculation I have seen made is as follows. If the South of Scotland Electricity Board and the Central Electricity Generating Board were to build coal-fired stations in the North-East and in Scotland they would find that the cost of generating electricity by coal would be ·002 of 1d. more than it will cost them to produce electricity in an oil-fired station on the banks of the River Thames. That is the difference. Marginally—very, very marginally—it is dearer to produce electricity in a coal-fired station in the North than it is to produce in an oil-fired station—at the present prices of oil—on the Thames Estuary.
If they go ahead with the production of all the electricity they need down here, having it produced by oil-fired stations Or coal-fired stations, then there is going to be either a lot of public expenditure incurred in providing alternative jobs for the miners who would then be out of work—who are, in fact, out of work—or it will cost quite a lot of money, I would say, to transfer them to employment elsewhere, and a lot of public service expenditure in building houses for them and schools

and all the other things regarded as essential for modern living in other parts of the country to which they are sent.
All we are saying to the Government is that it would be better to export electricity from the North than to export people. And that is the choice which has to be made. The Secretary of State will share with all his colleagues in the Cabinet the responsibility, and they will decide whether to export electricity from the North or to export people. Up to now, there is all the evidence in the world that they do not mind exporting people.

Mr. Willis: They are doing it.

Mr. Fraser: They have shown no inclination to rationalise the resources of this nation.
The Secretary of State is a farmer. When one thinks of the way in which the Government and Parliament over the years have decided to take money out of the taxpayers' pockets to ensure that our land resources would be mobilised and employed and that the farmers and farm workers and all engaged in the agricultural industry would have a reasonable return on their investments and for their labour, when one thinks of all that the Government have done for this industry—and I was proud and privileged for some years to be able to play a part in this—and one puts alongside it this complete disregard for our indigenous wealth in coal, which is the only material resource which we have in this country in any supply, and the way they are frittering it away by allowing hundreds of millions of tons of it to be locked away in mines now being closed, not because they are exhausted, but because there is not a market for the coal, one is astonished.
When one thinks of this failure to employ our human resources, the manpower that stands idle year by year in Scotland, despite all the Government claim to have done to remedy the situation, one is amazed that the Minister of Labour last week told my hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) that in ten years of Tory Government the number of male employees in Scotland went down by 16,000, while the number of males employed in the South in the same period increased by 855,000, and then they say that they have been doing


all they can. If that is true, they had better make way for somebody else who will do a little better.
All we are saying, before we pass this Bill and send it to another place for its consideration, is that the Secretary of State should at this time make provision in a Bill of this kind—in this Bill—for the construction of at least one additional coal-fired station. I hope the Secretary of State realises—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Third Reading, when we discuss what is in the Bill and not what is omitted from it.

Mr. Fraser: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary talked about this coal-fired station. Indeed, nearly everybody has talked about it, and I thought this was one of the purposes for which the extra money might be spent.

Mr. Speaker: If that is so, I am wrong, and the hon. Gentleman is right. I am sorry that I interrupted him.

Mr. Fraser: In any case, I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I have not very much more to say on this matter. I put it to the Secretary of State that there would seem to be—in fact, there is, and he himself has made it clear—no provision in this Bill for this extra station, and the £40 million is clearly to be spent on other projects. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that it is not good enough to wait for consultants to tell us next spring how our electricity should be generated in the future. He should make up his mind and the Government should make up their minds, and quickly.
The National Coal Board has made it quite clear to them and to the Mackenzie Committee, which reported about a month ago, that the Board cannot keep the Scottish pits open unless the market is expanded. At least, there are many pits which will not be able to keep open unless the market can be expanded. The Coal Board has stated publicly that the one thing that the Government can do that will enable the Board to avoid closing a number of pits in Scotland is to say now that this power station will be proceeded with. If they will say that, they will save the jobs of 10,000 miners—and those 10,000

miners maintain a population of 50,000 people.
The miners and others in Scotland have suffered a great deal under this Government in the past eleven years. Before the Government finally go to the electors and get chucked out, I beg them to do at least one thing for which they may get a little gratitude in certain parts of the country. Let them decide now to proceed with this station, save the jobs of 10,000 miners and give some security to a population of 50,000. They can do that now, and I ask them to do it before we dispose of the Bill. Let them give an assurance that they will take the decision and announce it and give authority to the South of Scotland Electricity Board, and if need be, let them come back to the House for another borrowing powers Bill before 31st March, 1965.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

ADVANCE FACTORY, CRAMLINGTON

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Edward Milne: The village of Cramlington in the county of Northumberland lies near the A.1 road. The villagers can hear the thunder of expresses on the main East Coast line between London and Scotland. It lies within easy reach of the Port of Blyth, and thus has easy access to Europe and all parts of the world on its eastern doorstep. Set in the midst of a shrinking coal field, it has made a major contribution to the country's economy. That is why the decision of the Board of Trade and the Government to site an advance factory at Cramlington is of major importance not only to my constituency but to the whole of south-east Northumberland and, in fact, to the north-east of England.
Centred near Cramlington is an area of 500 acres of industrial sites, and a working population of some 300,000 reside within eight miles with the town as a centre. It is the site of the first new


town in Britain which is a product of private enterprise and local authority enterprise and development. The Northumberland County Council has made itself responsible for the industrial estate, for part of the housing and for the schools and other amenities. Private enterprise will provide the town centre and some of the houses.
The advance factory area, with the present population of 5,000 to 6,000, will in the course of time—I raise the subject of the industrial estate tonight because we want to know how long "the course of time" will be—grow to an area with a population of about 50,000. At the moment the proposals for the town as a whole have been the subject of a formal submission to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government so that the area may be treated as one of comprehensive development. The local authorities within the area and the Northumberland County Council are to be congratulated on not merely waiting for Government assistance but anticipating it, going far ahead of anything the Government have been able to do for them.
This is an area in a shrinking coal field, which makes the question of an advance factory one of major importance to Northumberland's jobless. I want to deal for a moment with the question of the impact an advance factory would have on the rising unemployment in my constituency. In this same period in 1951 there were only 618 people unemployed in the district. I say "only", but I am not in any way minimising the effect of their unemployment on these people. On 10th October, 1960, the number of jobless was 781, and the last available figure, on 12th November, showed a rise to 1,329.
However, it was not only the rise in the number of jobless that made this a major disaster. There was also the length of unemployment among the persons signing on at the labour exchanges. The last available figures show that 251 had been unemployed from eight to 26 weeks; 123 from three to six months; and 111 for more than 12 months. Yet, while unemployment was mounting, the volume of assistance in the provision of new jobs for the area was declining.
Since 1951, as the Parliamentary Secretary will know, about 1,900 industrial development certificates have been issued for the area, and this factor must be borne in mind against the background of the unemployment figures. Of these certificates, 170 have been given in the last few years. Yet the jobs in prospect for the immediate future—which I understand is taken as being about six to 12 months—is only 200.
This is not a question of an area or a people shouting "woe" or moaning or doing any of those things that hon. Members opposite have told us ought not to be done. This area is proud of its industry, proud of the ability of its people to adapt themselves to any new tasks, and we take rather badly to being lectured by people who themselves have mainly contributed to the present state of the area. It is no use telling us that cartoons depicting today's unemployment as something akin to the conditions of the 1920s and the 1930s should be wiped off our British newspapers. People want to extricate themselves from unemployment at the earliest possible moment.
It is no use the Leader of the House telling us that we went through the same phase in 1958–59 and that we finally emerged from the General Election with another Tory victory tucked under the belts of hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is possible that the reasons for that victory have contributed to the figures which I have just given.
My constituency and other parts of north-east England can shout their wares from the housetops. Our major shipyards have been re-equipped; selected coal mines have been reconstructed and new shafts have been sunk; a general trend of modernisation has been followed since the war by industries in the area. Heavy engineering firms have added to their plant and factory space and there have been major schemes of expansion in the iron and steel industry. Firms from the North-East have made their contribution to and are playing a leading part in the newer aspects of industry and in developments in the use of nuclear power and plastics and so on.
We are asking the Board of Trade to speed up the building of the advance factory in an area which has equipped


itself and is prepared for meeting the challenge of the second half of the twentieth century and for making a major contribution to keeping Britain in the forefront of nations. Because of that modernisation of firms and the energies of local authorities and workpeople in the area, about 200 new firms and branches of firms have been established in the district since the war.
It is against that background that we seek information about the Board of Trade's decision to site an advance factory at Cramlington. On 14th December, 1961, two parts of my constituency, Blyth and Seaton Delaval, were scheduled as development districts, but the unemployment has not been arrested and the figures are rising, as I have shown. In a debate on 23rd July, about north-east unemployment, the President of the Board of Trade promised to site two new advance factories in Durham and Northumberland. We then discovered that that to be sited in Northumberland was to be in the village of Cramlington.
On 1st August, I had discussions at the Board of Trade and the following day I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman in these terms:
I feel that my talks at the Board of Trade this morning were extremely useful but was disturbed to learn that the decision on siting may take some two to three months. Will you please give all the assistance you can in expediting this matter as I am afraid that a delay of some two to three months will be rather disappointing to the people in my area who are expecting some more urgent action than this.
It is not merely a question of waiting from 23rd July for the siting of an advance factory, for the area has been scheduled since last December. Since then, we have had some guarded information from the Board of Trade, and I can understand its reluctance to give the maximum information on a matter involving the buying and selling of land.
I appreciate that there has to be, or that there may have to be, some degree of secrecy in this matter, but, as I pointed out to the Board of Trade on that occasion, the local authorities in my area have industrial sites ready and waiting for industrialists to move in, and it may be that some of these would have been easier of access than the actual site which was ultimately chosen for the factory.
The information which the district is awaiting with the keenest interest is the number of new jobs which this factory will provide. The size of the factory is important, and the number of jobs is, of course, of major importance. It is also important to know the type of job to be provided within the factory, because we have argued, and I think rightly, that not only is it a question of requiring more industry, but that in the past our industrial jobs have all been in one basket, and that what we need is diversity of industry. We believe that the siting of an advance factory can play a major part in tackling the unemployment problem in the area.
This affects not only my constituency, but the industrial prospects for the whole of south-east Northumberland, and, indeed, the whole of the North-East, because within the area of Northumberland, Durham and north Yorkshire, there is a population of about 2,800,000, with 1 million industrial workers. When I say that this area is larger than Wales, I am not talking in any disparaging way about Welsh Members on either side of the House.
I have shown the Parliamentary Secretary the manner in which the area has faced the challenge of the post-war period. Not only have we industrial prospects to offer, but the countryside and the area around these industrial areas is possibly amongst the nicest in Britain, and as an exiled Scot I know the beauty of hills and streams, of countryside and of beaches, and all the other things which Northumberland and the North-East can offer people who come into this area.
I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me than -when we can back up those things with one of the most adaptable labour forces in Britain we indeed have an area which is not shouting woe but is asking the Board of Trade to use this advance factory at Cramlington as a jumping off ground to abolish unemployment in the North-East not merely for a year or two, but for all time.

9.49 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price): I am particularly happy to reply to this Adjournment debate about Cramlington


because I had the good fortune to visit the town during my visit to the North-East in October. I was very much impressed with the energy and foresight with which responsible local people were approaching the exciting task of creating a new Cramlington, and I heartily endorse all that the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) has said about that enterprise.
As the hon. Gentleman said, Cramlington is a small town eight miles north of Newcastle and lies in the middle of a declining coalfield in the Seaton Delaval development district. Here the Northumberland County Council proposes to build a new town, first to endeavour to regenerate an old mining district, and, secondly, to rehouse people living in the more congested area of North Tyneside.
This is an ambitious scheme, which I have seen on the ground myself. It embraces the comprehensive development of between 5,000 and 6,000 acres of land under the Town and County Country Planning Acts. This plan has been approved by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. However, in fairness I should point out that although Cramlington is often referred to as Cramlington New Town, it has not been designated under the New Towns Act and therefore does not qualify for the benefits of that Act. As the hon. Member rightly pointed out, this venture is a happy partnership between the local authorities and private enterprise.
It is the aim of all concerned that Cramlington should become a focal point for economic and social growth in this part of Northumberland. I agree heartily with the hon. Member that Cramlington is geographically extremely well placed, lying between Newcastle and Blyth and, looked at nationally, close to the main arterial link from the Midlands to the South of Scotland.
Cramlington is part of the Seaton Delaval development district. Seaton Delaval was made a development district on 14th December, 1961, at the same time as the neighbouring district of Blyth—also in the hon. Member's constituency. At the November count this year the number of wholly unemployed in Seaton Delaval was relatively small—

293, of which 242 were males—but the percentage, at 8·6 per cent., was high. On the other hand, the number of wholly unemployed in the neighbouring district of Blyth was substantially higher, but the percentage was lower than that of Seaton Delaval, although slightly higher than the percentage for the north-east as a whole—4·8 per cent. as against 4·5 per cent. for what we classify as the North-East for statistical purposes.
Since December, 1961, the full range of assistance under the Local Employment Acts has been available to these two districts. I can assure the hon. Member that the Government are as anxious as he is to see the regeneration of the declining economy of south-east Northumberland, which has been experiencing the inevitable run-down of an old coalfield. That is why my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade chose a site in south-east Northumberland as one of the sites in his July programme of new advance factories. The House will recall that the July programme was designed primarily to help places likely to be hit by colliery closures and similar special local factors.
When my right hon. Friend made this announcement on 26th July he did not specify Cramlington, but described it more generally as a site in south-east Northumberland. The hon. Member may like to know why my right hon. Friend could not have been more specific in his description at that time. The Board of Trade was not then in possession of a site in this part of Northumberland, and we wished to avoid any mention of a specific place, in case we should raise false hopes, or encourage landowners to take advantage of the situation by holding out for a higher price than would normally be considered reasonable.
The House will be aware of the great difficulties that have arisen in the past when the Board of Trade has been publicly committed to building an advance factory in a particular place before acquiring the actual site. However, our preference all along has been for a site in the Seaton Delaval area, which has experienced a substantial reduction in the numbers employed in the mining industry. Most of these have retired, or have found other work, and the number of wholly unemployed has risen only from 187 in November, 1961,


to 293 in November this year. The fact remains that the percentage has increased from 5·5 per cent. to 8·6 per cent., and most of those affected—

Mr. Milne: The hon. Gentleman will not ignore the fact that many people have had to leave the area because no other employment was available.

Mr. Price: I agree. I was going on to say that most of these men have families to support and are not single men, which obviously makes the position more serious. My right hon. Friend and I are deeply conscious of the decline in employment opportunities, apart from any actual unemployment, in the Seaton Delaval district. It is clearly a serious matter, and relief cannot immediately be found within the surrounding area. The hon. Member said that his constituents do not cry woe. I know that they do not. I recognise that the burden of his argument was that it was unrealistic to expect the area, as of now, to be able to generate all the new economic growth which is necessary to take the place of all the industry which has gone out.
It is our purpose that the advance factory at Cramlington should act as a catalyst for industrial development in the new town. The factory is to be of about 14,000 sq. ft. I have personally inspected the site with representatives of the local authorities and of the Industrial Estates Corporation for England which is responsible for building the factory. From what I saw the site seemed to me to be admirable, and I would agree entirely with what the hon. Member said about the attractiveness of Cramlington to industry. The hon. Member is anxious to know how many of his constituents will be employed there.
The factory, as I have said, is to be about 14,000 sq. ft. The number of people likely to be employed there will, of course, depend upon the type of manufacture which the ultimate tenant of the factory will wish to carry out. However, on past experience it would seem probable that a factory of this size will employ between 60 and 70 people. Because we want this factory to be the catalyst for economic growth in Cramlington, it is being designed like most other advance factories which we build with an eye to easy expansion in the future. Thus, if the tenant wished to expand the factory

space we would be ready to build the necessary extension, and the initial factory is so designed. Furthermore, if a tenant can be found who wants a larger factory from the outset—before he goes into it—than the one which we are building, we shall, of course, be ready to build the necessary extension at once.
The hon. Member has made some mention of alleged delay in deciding upon the site for the factory which my right hon. Friend announced would be built in south-east Northumberland. The fact of the matter was this. The site which we had in mind in July when my right hon. Friend made his announcement was part of a much larger one which the Northumberland Council wished to purchase from a private landlord, and although arrangements have now been made to enable the Board of Trade to start work on the land, the position in the summer was quite different. I have already pointed out the difficulties and delays which can be caused when the Board of Trade has been publicly committed to a particular site before it has acquired the land. In these circumstances, we thought it advisable not to make a public announcement upon the precise site of the advance factory until the land transaction had been completed. This position was reached in early November and, accordingly, I informed the hon. Member on 8th November, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, that the factory would be built at Cramlington.
The hon. Member has argued that time has been wasted. Of course, four months is a long time to people who are waiting for the jobs which will be provided by this advance factory, but it would be quite wrong to assume that the intervening time has been wasted. The hon. Member will know that it is impossible for a factory of this kind to be put out to tender without any preparation. Soil tests have to be made to decide the strength of the foundations, the plan of the factory has to be prepared by the architects and bills of quantity have to be drawn up before the tenders can be put out.
Most of this work has been completed, and the Industrial Estates Management Corporation for England is now on the point of calling for tenders for the steel work to be used in the structure of the


factory. It will not, of course, be possible to start building operations until the contracts have been let, but there has been no avoidable delay and everything will be done to ensure that the work starts as soon as possible. Present plans are that the factory will be ready for progressive occupation in August next year and will be fully completed by September. I explained to the hon. Member, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, on 27th November, that there have been no special difficulties in starting work on this factory, but we had to select and buy a suitable site and this was inevitably a fairly long and complicated process. The Northumberland County Council and the Management Corporation can in fact be congratulated on the progress which they have made to date.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacArthur.]

Mr. Price: The hon. Member asked me, if not directly, at least by implication, whether we have found a tenant for the factory. The answer is that it is probably still too soon to expect industrialists to commit themselves to taking the Cramlington factory. We are taking active steps to draw the attention of industry to this advance factory, and indeed to all the other advance factories which we are constructing under the programmes announced this year. We have no reason to be discouraged because a tenant has not yet appeared, since the building has not actually started. But I am sure that this advance factory will make a useful contribution in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
We do not, of course, suggest that the factory will, of itself, revolutionise the whole economy of south-east Northumberland. But I believe that it will be a useful contribution to the area as a whole and particularly it will be an important first step towards attracting new industry to Cramlington and making it a worth-while growth point. In choosing Cramlington for an advance factory, the Government are practising what they preach. They want industry to go to Cramlington, and therefore

we are setting an example by building an advance factory there, financed from public funds. We hope that industry will follow our example. I need not remind the House that any firm which decides to settle in Cramlington will be eligible for the full range of assistance under the Local Employment Act.
I end by wishing the Cramlington venture well. It is an imaginative concept which we in the Board of Trade are backing with deeds as well as words.

10.2 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short: I wish to add a few words to the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) that the Government should get a move on with this advance factory in Cramlington. I do so not only because I know the area extremely well, but because, as the Minister rightly said, this new urban area will take a great deal of the overspill population from Tyneside. It is, therefore, quite likely that ultimately thousands of my constituents will be rehoused in the Cramlington area, and so I have a real interest in the promotion of new industry in that area.
We in the North-East have a legitimate grievance against the Government for their almost total inactivity in the past in dealing with the problem which faces us. They are building a number of advance factories for which we are grateful. But the programme of advance factories looks small indeed when measured against the size of our problem. In the North, and largely in the North-East, there are 61,000 people without jobs. That is the highest figure since before the war. My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), has checked the number of vacancies and there are 10 unemployed people for every vacancy on the books—10 men for each job.
The basic trouble in the North-East is that we are still so over-dependent on a few heavy industries. Despite all the diversification of industry which has gone on since the beginning of the 1930s we still depend to a considerable extent on mining, quarrying, heavy engineering and so on. Almost 16 per cent. of the people are employed in mining and quarrying and 10 per cent. in the construction industry. The figure for heavy


engineering is, I think, 7 or 8 per cent. and over 4 per cent.—almost 5 per cent.—are employed in shipbuilding and ship-repairing. We have more people employed by the railways than in most of the other regions. Because of this we were badly hit—probably hit harder than any other area except Northern Ireland—by the Government's credit restriction policy.
Throughout the past 10 years the Government have had to deal from time to time with bouts of inflation. This country can never be inflation proof. Whichever Government are in office, they must deal with the problem of inflation from time to time. Whenever inflation has occurred over the last 10 or 12 years the Government have gone to the "medicine chest" and fetched out one bottle only, which is labelled "credit squeeze". They have no other remedy than that of the credit squeeze. There may have been inflation in Birmingham, in the Midlands and in the South-East, but there has been no inflation in Cramlington, Blyth or Sunderland. Indeed, there has been the reverse, but we have had to take the medicine in the same way as more prosperous parts of the country.
It is rather like a mother with six children, one of whom has tummy ache, giving castor oil to all the children. We have had to take castor oil to cure inflation in Birmingham, the Midlands and the South. That has done terrible harm to the North-East. I have quoted, and could quote again, many examples of industrialists wishing to start enterprises in the area. In some cases able young scientists could start up useful small industries, but they are not able to get assistance from Local Employment Act. It do not pin as much faith to that Act as the Minister does. It has brought virtually nothing to the North-East.
Those young men have not been able to get assistance from the banks because the Government were operating one of their periodic credit squeezes. One young man wished to open a factory which would make electric pumps in the Cramlington area. I appealed to the President of the Board of Trade to give assistance to this young man, but no assistance was forthcoming.
We now have a state of affairs in the North-East in which, if B.O.T.A.C. turns

down an application, a large insurance company is prepared to finance the project if it looks at all possible. In some cases the company has done so. The machinery of B.O.T.A.C. and the Local Employment Act needs reexamining. To the North-East it has brought less than £500,000 in the whole period in which it has been in operation. One project after another has been turned down.
B.O.T.A.C. consists almost entirely of businessmen—indeed, I believe entirely of businessmen—and too much weight is given to the criterion of viability. Social considerations and conditions in the North-East ought to be much more important factors when B.O.T.A.C. is considering applications by industrialists for assistance. The answer for the North-East is to be found in a Government which will pursue a less restrictionist and more expansionist policy, but we are stuck with the present Government for some time. In view of the recent by-elections, I am afraid that we are likely to have the present Government for at least another year.
There are, however, some things which the Government could do. We have been discussing one of them tonight. There are things the Government could do which would make an almost immediate difference in the North-East. They could divert more Government orders to the North-East. The Government are the largest purchaser of goods in the country. The Government buy everything from tanks to ladies' "undies", and we make the lot in the North-East, especially the tanks. Why cannot the Government get together the four or five Ministries concerned and agree to divert 10 per cent., or even 5 per cent., more orders to the North-East?
In the New Year the biggest industrial unit on Tyneside, and one of the most important—of which I shall give the Minister particulars if he wishes—wild pay off 200 to 300 men who have been working with that firm for 20, 25 or 30 years. They are some of the most highly-skilled and valuable men in the country. That firm relies very heavily on Government orders and it is not getting nearly enough. The Government could divert many more orders to the North-East. Secondly, they could give the North-East more public investment.
Newcastle has been crying out for a new large secondary school to replace some of the most horrible old secondary modern schools which make a mockery of the Education Act. We cannot get the Ministry of Education to give us this school. Such a school would mean building work for 200 or 300 men for many months. As I pointed out, 10 per cent. of the insured male population in the North-East is engaged in the construction industry. More public investment would make a tremendous impact on unemployment in the North-East, probably bigger than anything else.
Let me give another example of where the Government are not helping. Every local education authority in the North-East has been asked to submit a list of priorities for building projects to implement the Albemarle Report.

Mr. Price: indicated assent.

Mr. Short: I see the Parliamentary Secretary is nodding. He knows about them. Does he know what the Ministry of Education has allotted? Northumberland has been allotted one minor project for a youth club. Sunderland has been allowed nothing. The story is the same throughout the whole of the North-East. Are the Government on the level about trying to help us in the North-East? We need these schools. We need more houses and roads.
One of the greatest liabilities in the North-East is its poor communications. We need an urban motorway from the North, from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and the Northumberland industrial area, through the Tyneside conurbation, with a new crossing across the Tyne, not going down to the A.1 but going across to the Midlands. That is where our communications are required.
After that, we need better lateral communications. The Government are spoiling the lateral communications. They are closing the branch lines. The new additional road programme announced recently by the Minister of Transport is simply chickenfeed—one or two improvements at junctions here and there. That is not what we want in the North-East. We want something radical, not only to absorb unemployment but to give us an efficient system of communications.
Those are two things that the Government could do. There are many others. The provision of advance factories is certainly one of them. I forget how many are on the books now. I believe there are seven. But, of course, we have a number of factories empty. How are we going to get tenants for the seven? The Local Employment Act is an inadequate instrument to attract them. What is the good of building factories if we cannot get tenants for them? Complementary to this problem of building advance factories would be a new and better instrument, a revised Local Employment Act.
As I said a few weeks ago in the House I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that the direction of industry is the only possible way of rehabilitating these areas. Provided it is done intelligently, I see nothing wrong with it. We are directing labour now. I was recently preaching at a Wesleyan chapel in the village of Waterhouse in Durham. Afterwards I went to a miner's cottage for my tea. He told me of the hundreds of men moving out of the valley down to Nottingham and South Wales to get work. But they could not get houses. They were allowed passes back home every six weeks. Those valleys in Durham will be derelict. Tens of thousands of people are living there—whole communities dependent on the coal mines. What is going to happen to these people? If we are going to build advance factories, there must be some way of getting industry there.
Let us provide more fiscal inducements to the industrialists, spread over a period of years. If this appeals to Tory philosophy, I do not mind so long as it helps us. If it would encourage them to go to these areas, let us do this by all means. We need these areas not only, as my hon. Friend said, to take up the unemployment but, coming back to my first point, to diversify our industry. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the future of this country's economy is to make more sophisticated products. Every industrialised country can make tanks, tractors and things like that. The future of this country, if we are to have a decent standard of life in the years to come, requires that we make more sophisticated products, electronic computers, airliners and things of that kind


where the return is greater. With their long tradition of skill, our workers can produce these things probably better than they can be produced anywhere else in the world. Herein lies our country's future, and this is another reason why we need far more of these factories.
We are extremely grateful for what is coming. I do not wish to be misunderstood about that. However, without the means to bring tenants, of course, the factories will not be very effective.
In Northumberland and Durham coalfield now we have a labour force of 116,000. By 1965 this will have dropped to between 65,000 and 75,000. Even allowing for natural wastage, this means that jobs must be found for 35,000 to 40,000 people from the mining industry alone in the next five or six years.
I am told that the mining industry has already almost reached saturation point in the absorption of redundant miners. It will be extremely difficult to place all these men in work in the future. We need far more training facilities, training facilities in a really big way not only for young people but especially for old people. The Government have made a start at the Brancepeth Camp near Durham which is now not needed for the Army. This is good, but what we need is training facilities for men from the coal industry and the shipyards who will become redundant in the next few years. It will be a colossal problem.
It is possible to calculate almost exactly the number of men who will leave jobs in coal mining, and, perhaps not so accurately though reasonably so, on the basis of the last two or three years, the number who will leave jobs in shipbuilding and several other industries. What we need in the North-East is a Government plan, worked out by the Government, by "Neddy" or any other body—we do not mind so long as it is effective—to equate the new jobs induced into the area with the number of redundancies which are coming. I suggest that there should be a ten-year plan worked out along those lines.
Each Monday, I fly down from Newcastle to London. The plane climbs up above Newcastle and, when it reaches a point above the Consett iron works belching out its orange smoke across the beautiful countryside, from about 10,000 ft. I can see the whole North Country spread out below me, from the sea and Sunderland with its shipyards and cranes right across to the jagged peaks of the Lake District. I can see the Tyne with its shipyards and the ships going up and down, the docks and the old industrial areas. I can see the rich agricultural land, the great sweep of moors and the fells across to the Lake District. This is one of the most perfectly balanced regions in the country.
Man does not live by bread alone. Important as industry is, we need more than that. In the North Country, we have one of the finest labour forces in the world. We have some of the finest factory sites in the world, and we have one of the best industrial areas in the world. We have some of the best people in the world, too, and we have one of the best industrial records in the world. Industrial relations in the North-East are second to none, and we are extremely proud of them.
As well as all that, we have in the North Country the moors, the great beaches of Northumberland, the quiet areas, the still lakes of the Lake District, the woods and the mountains. There is no better balanced area in the country in which to live.
I hope that the Government will give serious thought to this matter. Ours is one of the most clearly defined regions in the country, with the North Sea on the east, the Pennines on the west, and the Tees to the south and the Tweed to the north. In that oblong there are 2 million people. We are in great trouble now, and we look to the Government to help us.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes past Ten o'clock.